Porterville-based lactation specialist Hope Overholt can tell you itÂ’s not easy being a new mother. According to Overholt, breast feeding, which seems like it would come naturally, can be very challenging which is why she does what she does.

Question: What do you do as a lactation specialist?

Answer: Sometimes you have a baby that won’t latch or maybe they will latch but it hurts so they’re not latched properly, or maybe they’re tongue-tied or some other problem that makes the latch incorrect and the baby doesn’t remove the milk effectively so the milk supply goes down. So the baby’s not fed, the nipples get sore and the mother says “I can’t do this.” My job is to help mothers and babies make that connection, to get the latch right and to help mothers understand and manage their milk supply.

A mother needs to express her milk at least eight times a day. That frequency of removing the milk from the breast is what stimulates the hormones so that the mother builds her milk supply.

The first three weeks post delivery is a significant time for her building her milk-making capacity. So itÂ’s real important to get the baby on the breast and nursing effectively.

ThatÂ’s often what I do. I troubleshoot whatÂ’s wrong and how can I help. So, itÂ’s education, intervention and facilitation.

Q: When did you decide to move into this field?

A: When I was working at Lindsay I would see that babies wouldnÂ’t latch or wouldnÂ’t suckle effectively and I would wonder whatÂ’s going on here? I began taking classes and wrote up a proposal to the hospital to send some of us to a week-long class that is put out by the Center for Breast Feeding, which is part of the United StateÂ’s Committee for Breast Feeding Promotion. They had this 40 hour class and training so we could become lactation counselors. So there were three nurses from Lindsay and one from Porterville. We learned how human milk is different from formula, how it is species specific and how it significantly effects the health outcome for both mothers and babies.

I worked for 20 years at Lindsay in the OB department and in 1994 I think it was I decided to become a certified Lamaze instructor. I went down to Long Beach for classes with another gal and that was the first I heard about lactation consultants. When I was training, thatÂ’s when I first heard about lactation consultants down south and in some other areas. Porterville and the Central Valley are like 20 to 30 years behind everyone else.

But weÂ’re a culture that is driven by advertising and our government values the economy and moneymaking. The formula industry is a multibillion dollar industry. We are in a heavy dairy area and itÂ’s a dairy driven industry. The formula industry can disrupt a mother breast feeding.

Q: Can you tell me a little bit about your history in general. Where youÂ’re from and where you went to school?

A: I was born here in Porterville. I was married and ended up going to San Jose while my husband was going to California State University, San Jose. I got my RN from San Jose city college. I later came back to Porterville, probably in 1979. I have four kids. I worked at Lindsay for 20 years until Sierra View District Hospital bought it out and I moved over to Porterville. After that my husband died and I ended up going to San Diego when my daughter was pregnant because of her health problems. While I was down there I found there was an extension lactation program through the University of San Diego and they would accept classes that I had already taken and let me come into the program.

When I came back I got a job as a labor delivery nurse. I retired and went out briefly on some missions. Now IÂ’m an infusion nurse doing chemo and working in the Tulare County Breast Feeding Coalition. My lactation consultant friend that I worked with in Tulare has been coming over and we started a La Leche League in Porterville. La Leche League is supposed to be mother to mother support. You give a person information and they make their own decision. ItÂ’s also volunteer. Right now, IÂ’m doing my consulting on a volunteer basis but IÂ’m trying to get together a store front and set up a consulting business.

Q: What would you say, in general, is so important about raising the awareness here?

A: In 1994 statistics for Tulare County, we were, I think, 51 out of 52 counties as far as the lowest in breast feeding rates. In 2006, again we were amongst the lowest. There are more counties but some of them didnÂ’t have enough births to be valid in compiling the statistics.

In 13 years we have not improved our breast feeding rates on a whole. I recommend exclusive breast feeding for at least six months and then complimentary foods for one year and continuing to breast feed on until the second year because breast feeding is dose related, and depends on exclusivity and the length of time in months.

Breast fed babies have better immune system and they have better neurological development. Mothers have less incidents of breast and ovarian cancer. In babies thereÂ’s a whole list of risks in artificial feeding: ThereÂ’s the greater risk of leukemia and lymphoma in childhood, diabetes, both type one and type two and childhood obesity, just to name a few.

Also, Tulare County has a lot of low income people. Breast feeding is the gold standard for nutrition and health outcome for babies and mothers and economically, it’s the cheapest, the least costly food. We have a high number Medicaid patient and we’re talking about the escalating costs of health care. Well, breast feeding is a proactive, preventative measure that protects in the short term and in the long term — and it’s free.

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