February 08, 2023

Supporting Motherhood with Sonya Boersma

47 minutes

Karen Wilson welcomes Sonya Boersma, Founder and Principal Consultant of Lactation Care, to the podcast to address the importance of lactation and breastfeeding information and support for new parents. Sonya promotes evidence-based and compassionate care and support for parental goals.

Sonya explains how there is a lot of evidence and statistics to support breastfeeding but that there are conflicting sources of information from friends, family, healthcare workers, and the internet alike. She is an advocate for prenatal breastfeeding information or obtaining that support directly after giving birth, but ultimately having access to the proper lactation information right from the start.

In this episode, Karen and Sonya Boersma discuss the cost of lactation consulting versus the cost of formula, the ways in which parents can feel emotionally rejected when breastfeeding doesn’t go smoothly, the misinformation circulating from corporate pressure and within healthcare circles, and the World Health Organization’s push for their baby-friendly initiative to be widely adopted in hospitals. This is an important, informative episode for all new parents, soon-to-be parents, and families of new parents.

About Sonya Boersma:

Sonya Boersma has an eclectic resume focused on mothers and infants. This has ranged from including direct work with parents such as teaching prenatal, providing labour support as a doula, nursing in the Yukon including labour and delivery, nursing at Ottawa Public Health, starting and coordinating a breastfeeding peer support program, opening and running a breastfeeding drop-in clinic, and lactation consulting in independent practice.

It also includes many knowledge translation activities for healthcare professionals such as research and writing, developing and facilitating professional workshops, initiating new projects, coaching health care organizations, and leading collaborative teams. She has also enjoyed many opportunities as both a conference and webinar speaker. While earning her Master of Science in Nursing she led a hand expression quality improvement project at a large multi-site teaching hospital. Sonya is honoured to have worked with so many new parents as well as healthcare professionals and continues to be fascinated by this field and finding ways she can support evidence-based care.

Resources Mentioned in this Episode: