In this after-show conversation, we sit down with Rachelle Markham, IBCLC to talk about their corporate lactation program, which somehow turns into a much bigger conversation about work, burnout, hormones, neurodivergence, rest, and why society apparently decided that waking up early and suffering until 5 p.m. was the gold standard for being a productive adult. 

Rachelle explains their corporate lactation program, where they and their team support roughly 400 families through pregnancy, breastfeeding, pumping, returning to work, and eventually weaning. They call, text, teach classes, answer questions, and generally help parents navigate the fact that babies do not come with an instruction manual. 

Then comes the real revelation: Rachelle has designed their work life around the fact that their brain and body have absolutely no interest in pretending to be a traditional employee. Rachelle talks about learning to listen when their body says, “Absolutely not today” instead of fighting it, they now build rest days into their schedule. Because, as they learned the extremely hard way, ignoring your body's requests for rest can eventually result in a spectacular two-year burnout vacation that nobody booked. 

“We do not all have to kill ourselves for work.”

In this episode we talk about:

• Why corporate lactation support can be a powerful employee benefit (3:45)
• Creating your own schedule based on your body’s needs (10:45)
• How your body may know your work style better than you (15:11)
• Why you don’t have to do something just because everyone else is doing it (17:43)

Each month we host a live Deeper Dive so you can connect with us, our special guests, and each other + get lifetime access to the recording!

Our next Deeper Dive is on building community with Rachelle Markham.

Links and Resources

• Subscribe to the Deeper Dive Membership: https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/subscription/deeper-dive-membership
• Have an idea for a podcast episode or a Deeper Dive? Let us know! https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/form/collaborate
• Connect with Rachelle : https://www.pocketlcpro.com/
• Find Rachelle on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pocketlcpro/
• Follow Rachelle on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61564963953922

If you like what you heard today, please follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

About Us

Leah Jolly is a private practice IBCLC with Bay Area Breastfeeding in Houston, Texas.

Annie Frisbie is a private practice IBCLC serving Queens and Brooklyn in New York City and the creator of the Lactation Consultant Private Practice Toolkit.

Each month, Annie and Leah take a deeper dive into topics and information with an expert to give more insights on things that we might be incorporating in our clinical practice as well as entrepreneurs and business owners. They're bringing you this snippet today to give you a taste of what these deeper dives are all about.

Rachelle Markham, owns and operates Wellness Lactation, in San Diego, CA where she helps new parents and families navigate their infant feeding journey.

Rachelle has been working with families for over 27 years. Twenty of those years have been as an IBCLC. She has a passion for learning and keeping up to date with all things human lactation. This desire to “know-all-the-things” means she can frequently be found traveling to trainings or enrolled in multiple online classes. As of August 2022 she just finished up a year long intensive program on Holistic Lactation.

When she doesn't have a client in front of her you’ll almost always find Rachelle with a giant iced black tea in hand, wearing something black, and ready for an adventure!

Each month we host a live Deeper Dive so you can connect with us, our special guests, and each other + get lifetime access to the recording!

Links and Resources

• Subscribe to the Deeper Dive Membership: https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/subscription/deeper-dive-membership
• **Have an idea for a podcast episode or a Deeper Dive? Let us know! https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/form/collaborate
• **Submit your listener questions here: https://forms.gle/NsmGysHMAULW9o1z5
• Connect with Rachelle : https://wellnesslactationsd.com/
• Find Rachelle on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wellness_lactation
• Follow Rachelle on Facebook: https://wellnesslactationsd.com/

Subscribers also get access to our next Deeper Dive into K-Tapping on August 27, 2026. Subscribe at https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/subscription/deeper-dive-membership.

About Us

Leah Jolly is a private practice IBCLC with Bay Area Breastfeeding in Houston, Texas.

Annie Frisbie is a private practice IBCLC serving Queens and Brooklyn in New York City and the creator of the Lactation Consultant Private Practice Toolkit.

In this episode, we set out to discuss working with Type A parents... and accidentally ended up in a group therapy session for lactation consultants.

Along the way, we discovered that everyone—from new parents to seasoned IBCLCs—are just trying to earn an imaginary gold star in the Olympics of "Doing Everything Perfectly."

So if your nervous system feels like it's been running a marathon, take a long exhale, remember that perfection is a myth, and maybe let the tiny elf in your brain go scream into the street for a minute. It's doing important work. 

"It's so easy to have compassion for other people, and it's so difficult to have it for yourself." 

In this episode we talk about:

• Why "What's your success rate?" is a question capable of launching an existential crisis (3:06)
• The bittersweet moment when you realize you've graduated from "relatable mom" to "wise breastfeeding crone." (7:21)
• How taking one really long exhale is cheaper than therapy and almost as portable (11:39)
• The emotional support provided by sending one tiny part of your brain outside to scream while the rest of you continues nodding professionally (13:41)

Each month we host a live Deeper Dive so you can connect with us, our special guests, and each other + get lifetime access to the recording!

Our next Deeper Dive is on building community with Rachelle Markham.

Links and Resources

• Subscribe to the Deeper Dive Membership: https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/subscription/deeper-dive-membership
• Have an idea for a podcast episode or a Deeper Dive? Let us know! https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/form/collaborate
  
  

If you like what you heard today, please follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

About Us

Leah Jolly is a private practice IBCLC with Bay Area Breastfeeding in Houston, Texas.

Annie Frisbie is a private practice IBCLC serving Queens and Brooklyn in New York City and the creator of the Lactation Consultant Private Practice Toolkit.

Each month, Annie and I take a deeper dive into topics and information with an expert to give us more insights on things that we might be incorporating in our clinical practice as well as entrepreneurs and business owners. We're bringing you this snippet today to give you a taste of what these deeper dives are all about.

Every IBCLC has the client who's read every study and is quietly terrified — and our usual instinct (give them more information) often makes it worse. This Deeper Dive brings in a psychotherapist who works with exactly this client to show what's happening underneath and how to change the care plan. Tagline option: "The client who's read everything and trusts nothing. A psychotherapist on what's really going on — and what to do about it.”

Nelia DeAmaral is a Registered Psychotherapist, Brainspotting Consultant, and clinical supervisor in private practice in the Greater Toronto Area, with more than 25 years of clinical experience. As an experienced birth and perinatal professional, she specializes in supporting individuals and families through pregnancy, postpartum, and parenting. In addition to her clinical work, Nelia provides consultation, training, and supervision to therapists and helping professionals, with a focus on women’s mental health and supporting neurodivergent clients. She works from an integrative, attachment-oriented lens, incorporating somatic practices, Brainspotting, and practical tools to help clients and professionals feel more confident, grounded, and effective. Nelia is also a published author and the creator of Emerging Mothers and From Pointer to Pen, programs that integrate reflective writing, community, and healing. Find her at neliadeamaral.com

Connect with Nelia:

• Instagram: @nelia_deamaral — https://www.instagram.com/nelia_deamaral/
• Facebook: Coaching with Nelia — https://www.facebook.com/CoachingwithNelia
• Website: https://neliadeamaral.com

Each month we host a live Deeper Dive so you can connect with us, our special guests, and each other + get lifetime access to the recording!

Links and Resources

• Subscribe to the Deeper Dive Membership: https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/subscription/deeper-dive-membership
• Have an idea for a podcast episode or a Deeper Dive? Let us know! https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/form/collaborate
• Submit your listener questions here: https://forms.gle/NsmGysHMAULW9o1z5

Subscribers also get access to our next Deeper Dive into Building Community on July 23, 2026. Subscribe at https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/subscription/deeper-dive-membership.

About Us

Leah Jolly is a private practice IBCLC with Bay Area Breastfeeding in Houston, Texas.

Annie Frisbie is a private practice IBCLC serving Queens and Brooklyn in New York City and the creator of the Lactation Consultant Private Practice Toolkit.

We just finished an hour with Cathy Watson Genna, and our brains are still buzzing. That's how it always goes with Cathy — she has this gift for showing you how everything connects. The web of infant assessment can feel impossibly tangled from the inside, but she helps you see the threads, trace them, and understand why each one pulls on the others. 

One of the things Cathy does so well is remind you how much you've actually learned — and how much there still is to learn. Both of us are coming up on recertification this year (yes, already — we found an old episode in our archive of us talking about our first recertification and the time warp is real), and we're both still chasing CERPs and CEUs with zero signs of stopping.

This aftershow is us, Annie and Leah, processing what sparked for us and what we're taking back into the treatment room.

"It's hard to figure out what's going wrong if you don't know what's going right." 

In this episode we talk about:

• Learning through touch (3:21)
• Finding healthy baselines (7:40)
• The importance of staying flexible in assessments (13:16)
• Tools for oral function (15:15)

Each month we host a live Deeper Dive so you can connect with us, our special guests, and each other + get lifetime access to the recording!

Our next Deeper Dive is on working with Type A clients — and yes, if you practice in an urban or professional community, this is basically your entire caseload. We cannot wait. 

Links and Resources

• Subscribe to the Deeper Dive Membership: https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/subscription/deeper-dive-membership
• Have an idea for a podcast episode or a Deeper Dive? Let us know! https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/form/collaborate
• Catherine Watson Genna's book: Supporting Sucking Skills in Breastfeeding Infants, 3rd ed. — the foundational text for much of what Cathy teaches
• "Inside the Interstitium, the Human Body's Hidden Pathways" — New York Times, May 11, 2026 (gift article — no paywall)
• Langevin & Yandow (2002): Acupuncture points and the connective tissue network — original fascia-meridian mapping study

Infant Assessment Tools Annie Uses

• AOMT (Academy of Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy) — Martinelli Oral Assessment Tool
• Srinivasan, Dobrich, Mitnick & Feldman (2006): Frenotomy Decision Rule — Breastfeeding Medicine
• TABBY (Tongue-tie And Breastfed BabY): Ingram et al., International Breastfeeding Journal, 2019

Craniosacral Therapy Training

• Beames CST Foundations Course — Meaghan Beames, RMT (virtual, 4 weeks, eligible for CERPs)

IBCLC Recertification

• IBLCE recertification and CERPs information

If you like what you heard today, please follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

About Us

Leah Jolly is a private practice IBCLC with Bay Area Breastfeeding in Houston, Texas.

Annie Frisbie is a private practice IBCLC serving Queens and Brooklyn in New York City and the creator of the Lactation Consultant Private Practice Toolkit.

Each month, Annie and Leah take a deeper dive into topics and information with an expert to give more insights on things that we might be incorporating in our clinical practice as well as entrepreneurs and business owners. They're bringing you this snippet today to give you a taste of what these deeper dives are all about.

In this Deeper Dive, you'll learn how newer research into tongue function, tethered oral tissues, and the fascial system has changed what experienced clinicians are looking for during hands-on infant assessment — and how to bring those insights into your own practice. You'll leave with a clearer framework for the methodical hands-on piece of your visits and a better understanding of what palpation can tell you that observation alone can't.

Catherine Watson Genna BS, IBCLC is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant in private practice in New York City. Certified in 1992, Catherine is particularly interested in helping moms and babies breastfeed when they have medical challenges. She speaks to healthcare professionals around the world on assisting breastfeeding babies with anatomical, genetic or neurological problems. Her presentations and her writing feature her clinical photographs, which have also been published widely. Catherine's research collaboration with Columbia University and Tel Aviv University's departments of biomedical engineering are studying various aspects of infant sucking, swallowing and nipple biomechanics. She is the author of Selecting and Using Breastfeeding Tools: Improving Care and Outcomes (Praeclarus Press 2009) and Supporting Sucking Skills in Breastfeeding Infants 4th edition (Jones and Bartlett Publishers 2023) as well as professional journal articles. Catherine is still a La Leche League Leader, supporting new Leaders in Queens. Catherine was the founding Associate Editor for the United States Lactation Consultant Association journal Clinical Lactation's first 7 years. Her own two offspring (who were of course breastfed!) are a seminarian and a registered nurse.

Each month we host a live Deeper Dive so you can connect with us, our special guests, and each other + get lifetime access to the recording!

Links and Resources

• Subscribe to the Deeper Dive Membership: https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/subscription/deeper-dive-membership
• Have an idea for a podcast episode or a Deeper Dive? Let us know! https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/form/collaborate
• Submit your listener questions here: https://forms.gle/NsmGysHMAULW9o1z5

Subscribers also get access to our next Deeper Dive into Type A Families on June 16, 2026. Subscribe at https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/subscription/deeper-dive-membership.

About Us

Leah Jolly is a private practice IBCLC with Bay Area Breastfeeding in Houston, Texas.

Annie Frisbie is a private practice IBCLC serving Queens and Brooklyn in New York City and the creator of the Lactation Consultant Private Practice Toolkit.

In this episode, we basically hold up a mirror to our work lives and go, “Oh… THAT’S why we’re tired.” Fresh off a chat with Laura Suttin, MD, MBA, PCC , we unpack the wild idea that maybe sprinting through our careers like we’re being chased by a bear isn’t the healthiest strategy. Turns out, pausing, breathing, and occasionally acting like humans instead of productivity robots might actually help. 

We dive into team culture and realize—surprise!—your vibe as a leader is contagious. If you’re running around stressed and skipping lunch, your team’s not exactly going to be sipping tea and setting boundaries. We compare the classic “rise and grind” mentality with a more radical approach: not burning everyone out. 

Of course, we get real about burnout—what it looks like, how it sneaks up on you, and how it’s basically your brain waving a tiny white flag saying, “Please stop.” We talk about actually listening to those signals instead of powering through like it’s a personality trait. 

“The way you work sometimes just sets the stage for how you expect everybody else to work—even if you never say it out loud.” 

In this episode:

• Team Culture: Are we thriving or just tired? (1:25)
• Why self-care is not optional (4:56)
• The “CEO energy” we thought we have vs reality (8:00)
• Subtle clues that you might be heading toward burnout (12:44)

Each month we host a live Deeper Dive so you can connect with us, our special guests, and each other + get lifetime access to the recording!

Links and Resources

• Subscribe to the Deeper Dive Membership: https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/subscription/deeper-dive-membership
• Have an idea for a podcast episode or a Deeper Dive? Let us know! https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/form/collaborate
• Submit your listener questions here: https://forms.gle/NsmGysHMAULW9o1z5
• Connect with Dr Suttin: https://www.drlaurasuttin.com/
• The Self-Compassion Institute: https://self-compassion.org/
• The Purposeful MD by Laura Suttin: https://bookshop.org/a/110134/9798987370452
• Fierce Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff: https://bookshop.org/a/110134/9780062991058
• Drive by Daniel Pink: https://bookshop.org/a/110134/9781594484803

If you like what you heard today, please follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

About Us

Leah Jolly is a private practice IBCLC with Bay Area Breastfeeding in Houston, Texas.

Annie Frisbie is a private practice IBCLC serving Queens and Brooklyn in New York City and the creator of the Lactation Consultant Private Practice Toolkit.

Each month, Annie and Leah take a deeper dive into topics and information with an expert to give more insights on things that we might be incorporating in our clinical practice as well as entrepreneurs and business owners. They're bringing you this snippet today to give you a taste of what these deeper dives are all about.

Annie, Leah, and Dr. Laura Suttin MD, MBA, PCC, a physician and leadership coach, get into what it actually takes to build a healthy culture inside a private practice ecosystem. Whether you're managing contractors, mentoring interns, or just trying to figure out why the team dynamic feels off, this conversation will give you a framework for thinking about culture as something you build on purpose, not something that just happens around you.

Dr. Laura Suttin is a physician, former healthcare executive, certified coach, speaker, organizational consultant, and author of The Purposeful MD-Creating the Life You Love Without Guilt. With decades of leadership experience, Laura partners with healthcare organizations to realign leadership and culture around her proprietary Compass Framework: Purpose, Connection, Empowerment, and Joy. Her work addresses burnout at its root, by transforming misaligned, fragmented cultures into high-performing environments where people thrive, outcomes rise, and the business bottom line improves. Laura’s clients stop chasing short-term burnout fixes and instead build resilient, sustainable healthcare systems, where engagement grows and both people and performance flourish.

Each month we host a live Deeper Dive so you can connect with us, our special guests, and each other + get lifetime access to the recording!

Links and Resources

• Subscribe to the Deeper Dive Membership: https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/subscription/deeper-dive-membership
• Have an idea for a podcast episode or a Deeper Dive? Let us know! https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/form/collaborate
• Submit your listener questions here: https://forms.gle/NsmGysHMAULW9o1z5
• https://www.drlaurasuttin.com/
• https://self-compassion.org/
• 
  

If you like what you heard today, please follow us on Facebook and **Instagram.**

About Us

Leah Jolly is a private practice IBCLC with Bay Area Breastfeeding in Houston, Texas.

Annie Frisbie is a private practice IBCLC serving Queens and Brooklyn in New York City and the creator of the Lactation Consultant Private Practice Toolkit.

Recorded right after the March Deeper Dive on changing your EHR, this episode goes somewhere unexpected. Rachel walks us through her chart review process for Guiding Bottle Breakthroughs research, we get into using AI for data analysis without losing your mind, and the conversation lands on a question a lot of us are navigating: what do you do when your client already got advice from ChatGPT before they got to you?

“No amount of AI can make someone feel like they got a hug.”

In this episode:

• How to use AI tools to analyze your own de-identified chart data
• Why AI keeps getting bottle refusal wrong — and Rachel's framework for evaluating any source
• The case for human expertise in a world where clients are Googling before they call you
• Guiding Bottle Breakthroughs is going evergreen

Each month we host a live Deeper Dive so you can connect with us, our special guests, and each other + get lifetime access to the recording!

Links and Resources

• Subscribe to Deeper Dive — $20/month, 50+ recordings going back to 2020
• Guiding Bottle Breakthroughs
• Choosing a charting platform: Annie's updated comparison post
• Subscribe to the Deeper Dive Membership: https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/subscription/deeper-dive-membership
• Have an idea for a podcast episode or a Deeper Dive? Let us know! https://learn.paperlesslactation.com/form/collaborate
• Submit your listener questions here: https://forms.gle/NsmGysHMAULW9o1z5
  
  

If you like what you heard today, please follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

About Us

Leah Jolly is a private practice IBCLC with Bay Area Breastfeeding in Houston, Texas.

Annie Frisbie is a private practice IBCLC serving Queens and Brooklyn in New York City and the creator of the Lactation Consultant Private Practice Toolkit.

Each month, Annie and I take a deeper dive into topics and information with an expert to give us more insights on things that we might be incorporating in our clinical practice as well as entrepreneurs and business owners. We're bringing you this snippet today to give you a taste of what these deeper dives are all about.

If you've ever felt stuck on a charting platform you've outgrown and couldn't quite bring yourself to leave, this one is for you. Annie, Leah, and Rachel O'Brien get candid about the state of EHR options for lactation private practice — what they've tried, what almost worked, and why migration terror keeps so many of us exactly where we are.

In this episode:

• Why switching platforms is harder than it looks, even when you really want to
• What to look for (and what to watch out for) when evaluating your options
• The dyad charting problem — and why it's still unsolved
• Rachel's advice for new IBCLCs choosing their first charting platform

Links:

• Subscribe to Deeper Dive — $20/month, 50+ recordings going back to 2020
• Guiding Bottle Breakthroughs
• Choosing a charting platform: Annie's updated comparison post
  
  

Rachel is a IBCLC in Massachusetts whose popular blog is a favorite of both families and lactation professionals. Her signature style of humor laced with pragmatic compassion and guilt-free support has resonated with hundreds of thousands of readers and has led to a busy full-time private practice which includes virtual visits with blog readers from across the world.

Before her foray into lactation-land Rachel received her BA in English with a Journalism concentration and then worked in higher education for years. She became an IBCLC in 2015 after completing her Masters degree in lactation, during which she wrote her dissertation on low milk supply. Rachel was a full-time working, breastfeeding and pumping mom for all three of her children and now specializes in low supply, bottle refusal and bottle feeding problems, working parents, and LGBTQ+ families.

When not working with families you will find Rachel reading lactation books, taking lactation courses, and fervently posting in lactation Facebook groups. Her hobbies include reading, watching drag shows, and staring blankly off into the distance while she wonders what she’s forgetting to do.