The pumpspot

To continue our celebration of National Breastfeeding Month, Amy sat down with Tom Johnston. Tom is a midwife, a lactation consultant, a father to eight breastfed children, and an assistant professor of nursing at Methodist University. Tom brings a very unique perspective both professionally and personally, not only on fatherhood but also on the microbiome, and the magic of milk. He spoke in detail about breastfeeding as a family affair, how much nourishment is much more than the physical, and why at the end of the day what matters most is love. We hope you enjoy this episode!

We know there are hard days, long nights and so many challenges to overcome within the feeding journey. We know there are many moments you need the reminder that you are strong and capable and that you can keep going. This episode is here to pour every ounce of encouragement into you, whether you're breastfeeding, chestfeeding, exclusively pumping, or anyplace in between. It's filled with uplifts and words of wisdom from the pumpspotting community to help inspire and energize you on your journey. We are in awe of you. You can do this.

Enjoy this episode with Amy and Lisa, and jump on our app or IG to share your thoughts with us after.

This conversation explores all the ways we give and receive the gift of breast milk. Lisa sat down with Abby Malman Case of Mothers’ Milk Bank, and Mothers’ Milk Bank Baby Café in Denver, Colorado for an inspiring and educational conversation about the life-giving world of milk donation. Abby is a mom of two, an international board-certified lactation consultant, and a vital part of our pumpspotting family. Abby shares her story with Lisa and her lifelong passion for helping mothers give and receive the gift of nourishment.

Thank you for supporting the pumpspot as a platform to uplift, educate, and bring mamas together. Enjoy this conversation with Lisa and Abby…

This platform is a place where we value community conversations and elevating voices around real topics, issues and mothers. With that in mind, we wanted to bring you a very timely conversation with Mackey Roberson, a lactation consultant, a mother to 8 , and a true champion of the nourishment journey. Mackey is an inspiration to the mothers she guides, with over 24 years of breastfeeding under her belt.

This episode is the third in our series of conversations with Black mothers and leaders. Without further ado here’s the conversation between Amy and Mackey.

As a community-inspired breastfeeding and pumping platform, we're focused on helping parents feed both their families and their careers. Nourishing a baby impacts every aspect of your life, and that includes your time in the workplace. Support for nursing and pumping parents has to come from many places, from employers. The companies we work for have such an important role to play in a successful feeding journey. Listen in as Amy and Lisa talk about pumpspotting at work - our corporate lactation program - specifically designed to help all types of organizations become part of the solution. Fitting in the palm of your hand, this employer app-based program offers access to a global community, a custom company chat portal, 24-7 support from lactation consultants, internal lactation room coordination, and so much more. We discuss why this program is so important, how companies can begin to think about the business benefits of breastfeeding and pumping, and the role they play in making an impact. Join us.

If we can get working mothers to space, we can certainly make space for them here on earth. Lisa and Amy sit down with Susan Schuh, Rachael Copeland, and Erin Sholl from NASA to explore how a company and its employees can unite to change workplace support for families. Tune in to hear how NASA is building a parenting community and rethinking breastfeeding support at work. We had the great pleasure of gathering with NASA employees and leaders to talk about what working parents really need in September when we pulled Barb, our Breast Express RV, up to the Johnson Space Center. What we learned is that whether astronaut or engineer, attorney or administrator, flight director, or father, we all struggle as we nourish, work, and navigate the parenthood transformation. We also were reminded that we all share in the journey and are never alone.

On this platform, we value candid community conversations that elevate voices around real topics, issues, and motherhood experiences. For part two of our series of conversations with Black mothers and leaders, Lisa spoke with Ericka Polanco-Webb. Ericka is a motherhood journalist, mom to five, and a doctoral student focusing on innovation and strategy. In this honest conversation, she explores barriers, opportunities and risks ahead that must be reckoned with in order to create lasting change.

This platform is a place where we value community conversations and elevating voices around real topics, issues and mothers. With that in mind, we wanted to bring you a very timely conversation between Lisa from our team, and Jenny LeFlore, a mother, a champion for mothers, and someone who is tightly woven into our community…really an extension of the pumpspotting family. Jenny is a community builder herself. She lives in Chicago, Bronzeville specifically, with her husband and 3-year old son. This episode is the start of a series of conversations with Black mothers and leaders.

How do we talk to ourselves, take care of ourselves, and come together in a time of postpartum (and pandemic) to support maternal mental health? We spoke with Dr. Catherine Birndorf and Paige Bellenbaum, co-founders of The Motherhood Center, about postpartum depression, managing anxiety as a new mom, challenges during the pandemic, and the importance of community. Dr. Birndorf and Paige share the story of how they came together to form The Motherhood Center of New York to offer supportive services and perinatal mood and anxiety disorders treatment (PMADs) for new and expecting moms plus ideas for nourishment and navigating emotions during a transitional time.

As we continue to explore COVID-19 through the lens of mothers and women, we wanted to learn more about how the birthing and postpartum experience has been impacted. To help us look at this topic from a few different angles, we spoke with Blair Hicks Terrell, CNM, who is a practicing midwife at a hospital in Knoxville, TN - and also happens to be expecting her first baby very soon. We also catch up with Paige Carroll, CPM, owner of Welcome Home Midwifery, a home birth practice in Knoxville. Theses conversations were so inspiring and revealing. They remind us of the the strength women display as they adapt, grow and lift each other up as they bring new life into the world. Thank you for coming along as we hear their stories.