Galactagogues Before Birth | What Expecting Moms Should Really Know

Welcome back to the Postpartum Prep Podcast. My name is Ceridwen, I'm your podcast host and your guide to preparing for a smoother start to life with your new baby. Today we're going to be talking about something called galactogogs.

If you've never heard about galactogogs before, essentially these are foods or supplements or herbs or medication, anything you ingest that is thought to increase your milk supply. And this conversation might not be what you're expecting. I'm just so passionate about this because when you're a pregnant mom, this is just like hands up if you relate to this because this is what I have seen over and over and over and over again.

When you're pregnant, you see all these ads for things like lactation cookies, lactation teas, or you know, when you're doing your postpartum meal prep, there's a lot of recipes for like superfoods to boost your milk supply or again, like recipes for lactation cookies, things like that. Almost every mom I've talked to understands what I'm talking about when I say something like this. And I have a really big problem with this being the thing that pregnant moms are seeing about, you know, I would say this is the most common thing that I've seen that pregnant moms are seeing during pregnancy when it comes to how to increase your milk supply is these special lactation foods.

But the truth is, Galacticox are usually the very last thing I reach for as a lactation counselor when I'm trying to help a family experiencing low milk supply. So in this episode, I'm going to explain why I'm going to explain why I have such an issue with the marketing of and the messaging of lactation cookies and teas. And hopefully you'll walk away from this episode with a better understanding of what actually does support milk supply and what doesn't.

Now before I get into explaining why I am cautious about Galacticox, I want to first explain what it means to have a full milk supply. A full milk supply is one that meets your baby's intake. So say your baby is drinking X amount of milk a day, a full milk supply means that you're also producing X amount of milk a day.

It doesn't mean that you're producing X amount of milk a day plus freezing milk on top of it, although that is what some people do or need to do. I don't have a problem with having a supply where you're freezing some milk each day. My caution is that we see all these videos on Instagram where it's moms filling up their freezer with several bags of milk every single day, a freezer stash full, a freezer full of milk, and actually this sets up a really unrealistic expectation because for most people that's not what a full milk supply looks like.

A full milk supply is simply one that meets your baby's needs. But we see these videos on social media of freezers full of milk, and the truth is, the people who are filling up, completely filling their freezer full of milk, they probably have an oversupply. But an oversupply is actually not something that most people are going to want.

And this episode is not about the negatives of an oversupply, so I'm not going to go into too much detail on that, but it can cause issues when you have an oversupply for both you as the mom and for your baby. My point is, I'm just trying to demonstrate that when it comes to having a full milk supply, a full milk supply does not mean having way more milk than your baby is actually drinking, it just means being able to meet your baby's needs. And that's important just so that we have realistic expectations about what a full milk supply really means.

Because galactagogues, the whole idea about galactagogues is that they're meant to be helping you to increase your milk supply, and in theory this means helping you to have a full milk supply, one that meets your baby's needs. And that sounds great, right? Like I've said in this episode, having a full milk supply is one that helps you to meet your baby's needs. Everyone who is trying to exclusively breastfeed surely would want a full milk supply, right? So why would I be cautious about galactagogues if galactagogues are supposed to be helping you increase your milk supply? Well, I think the first thing that we really need to talk about is why are we anticipating that you're going to have a low milk supply in the first place? I think all the messaging that you hear in pregnancy about galactagogues being just something to help boost milk supply, it gives the impression that low milk supply is common or normal.

And that is a huge problem because most moms do have the capacity to make enough milk for their baby. There's a very small percentage of moms who may experience low milk supply, primary low milk supply, and we're going to get more into detail about low milk supply in a second, but the percentage of moms who genuinely are not able to make enough milk for their babies is very, very small. For the most part, you are going to be able to make enough milk for your baby.

And the problem with normalizing low milk supply is, I mean, there's a couple of problems. Of course, first of all, if someone is experiencing low milk supply, if you end up experiencing low milk supply and you think, well, this just seems to be a normal part, you know, I've heard about low milk supply, it seems to just be something normal that people experience, you might not get the skilled help that you actually need that might be able to help you have a full milk supply. And my second issue is obviously when it comes to galactagogues, maybe we're suddenly thinking, oh, well, if I have low milk supply, I've heard of galactagogues, I'm going to try galactagogues, when actually galactagogues are probably not what is going, you know, if you're actually experiencing low milk supply, there's usually, I mean, there's always a reason why you're experiencing low milk supply.

If you're actually experiencing low milk supply, you want to be speaking with someone like an IBCLC, a lactation consultant who actually knows how to help you increase milk supply. And the majority of ways to increase milk supply are going to have nothing to do with taking a cup of lactation tea or eating a lactation cookie. Because usually there's a reason for low milk supply.

And like I said, we're going to get into that in a moment. But just to summarize what I've said so far, A, low milk supply should not be considered normal and if you're experiencing low milk supply, you need support. B, that support is probably not going to be a lactation cookie.

One last issue with normalizing low milk supply is that the normalization of low milk supply actually impacts moms who do have a full milk supply. There's this term called perceived insufficient milk supply or perceived low milk supply, something like that. The main word in that phrase being perceived.

This means that we think we have a low milk supply when we actually don't. But what can happen in this situation is we think we have low milk supply, so we give a bottle of formula just to top up. And actually there's something called the top up trap where you're giving formula and that's replacing the feed that your baby should have had so your breasts are not getting the signal to keep making that milk.

And this cycle kind of plays out where because you're giving formula, you actually are unintentionally decreasing your milk supply. Now obviously there's loads of different reasons why people give formula and there's also ways to give formula that don't impact your milk supply, but that's a much longer conversation. So just for the purpose of this episode, I'm just trying to demonstrate how we go from normalizing low milk supply, leading people to think they have low milk supply when maybe they don't, but because they think they have low milk supply, they're introducing formula which actually leads to low milk supply.

So all of these are my reasons why I think seeing things in pregnancy like just take this lactation tea or take these lactation cookies just to give a little boost to your milk supply, we shouldn't be making it seem as if it's normal for moms to have a low milk supply in the first place. Because moms, if they have low milk supply, they deserve skilled support, they deserve to actually figure out what's causing their low milk supply and not just think it's just a normal thing to have low milk supply. There's always going to be something causing it.

And we don't want to be leading moms to think that they might have a low milk supply if they actually don't. And if you do think you have a low milk supply, the first thing to do is not to have a lactation tea or lactation cookie. The first thing to do is to talk to somebody who can actually help you figure out what's going on.

Now, the thing that I find most frustrating about the conversation around Galactagogues for pregnant moms is that pregnant moms, like I said, I'm pretty sure most pregnant moms hear about foods to increase your milk supply. What pregnant moms are not being taught. And like I said, this is all from kind of my experience from what I've seen when I was pregnant, but also I'm as a lactation counselor.

So what I what I'm seeing and what I experienced is you're hearing about foods to increase your milk supply or teas or cookies or whatever to just give a little boost to your milk supply. We're not being taught about actually how milk supply even works. These are like the fundamental basics of milk supply and actually can make such a difference when you do know these fundamental basics of milk supply.

And just to be clear, I'm not saying it's you as the mom who is at fault for not knowing how milk supply actually works. It's not your fault. It's the fault of people who should be educating you but actually aren't.

And that might not even be their fault. It might be because they were never taught or it might be because breastfeeding is just so widely misunderstood in our society that they're getting like mixed messages. Or maybe it is the influence of this is more my conspiracy theory, but I have a conspiracy theory that the people who, you know, people can make money off of GalactiGogs by selling you GalactiGog products.

They're not going to want you to know how milk supply actually works because then you're not going to buy their products. So that's kind of my conspiracy theory. But we'll, we'll, let's move on to actually talking about what actually does cause low milk supply.

So what does actually cause low milk supply? There are two categories of low milk supply, primary low milk supply and secondary low milk supply. We're actually going to start by talking about secondary low milk supply because this is the most common reason for low milk supply. So I've done an episode about this before.

What episode was it? I think it was episode 10 where I talked about how to prepare for breastfeeding before your baby arrives. I talked a little bit about how how milk supply actually works, but I'll just recap again. So milk is produced on a supply and demand basis.

So I actually like to call it demand and supply, where basically the demand on your breasts for milk is what helps to regulate how much supply you have. In other words, the more milk removed from the breasts, the more is produced. There's also, you could also think about it like the emptier your breasts are, the faster your body will be producing milk.

But if milk either isn't removed frequently enough, so it's sitting in the breast for a long time and signaling back to your body, oh, I guess we don't need all this milk, we can slow down production, or if it's not being removed effectively enough. So maybe your baby is feeding, but they're having trouble actually removing the milk from your breasts or you're pumping, but something's not going quite right with the pumping. Maybe we'll talk about that a little bit later.

But if something's not going quite right there and the milk is not being removed effectively from your breasts, so it might be signaling. So then, again, this kind of feedback loop happens where it signals to your body, oh, I guess we don't need this milk because it's not being removed. So we'll slow down milk production.

So however it's, whatever is causing milk production to slow down, when you reach the point where your milk production has slowed down so much that you no longer are producing enough milk to exclusively breastfeed your baby, you're not producing enough milk to completely meet their needs. This is known as secondary low milk supply. Now, the key thing here is that there seems to be whatever the reason for your milk supply slowing down, there's a reason, right? And so the key thing here is to address that reason.

It's not just to take a lactation cookie or a tea or something. It's to actually address why has your milk supply slowed down and what can we do to get things back on track? And that usually is going to mean speaking with a lactation professional, ideally an IBCLC if you have access to one. If not, someone like a lactation counselor or a breastfeeding counselor, somebody who knows what they're talking about when it comes to breastfeeding.

Essentially, what I'm trying to get at is that you want to be addressing the root cause of your secondary low milk supply, because that's what will truly move the needle when it comes to increasing milk supply. And a lack of galactagogues is not one of those root causes. You can take all the galactagogues you want, but if you're not removing the milk from your breasts frequently enough or efficiently enough, you're not going to be signaling to your body to keep making that milk.

Now, we'll get more into those actual root causes of low milk supply in a second, but I just want to go back to touch on what primary low milk supply is. So primary low milk supply is when something is actually going on within the mother that is preventing her from being able to produce enough milk. So even if you're removing milk frequently enough, efficiently enough, your milk supply still seems low.

It's usually at that point, probably something going on within you as the mom. So common things are things like anemia or thyroid issues or PCOS. Sometimes gestational diabetes.

I'm talking about health health concerns like that, that would be impacting your ability to produce enough milk. And I think I'm going to have a lactation consultant come on the podcast soon. So I think I'll probably see if she can touch a bit more on what we would do in these kinds of situations.

So if you're wanting to learn more, keep an eye out for that episode. The other thing that can cause primary low milk supply is if you just actually have less of the breast tissue needed to produce milk. This is sometimes referred to as hypoplasia or IGT.

Hypoplasia. I've actually never said that word out loud. Hypoplasia or hypoplasia.

Whichever it is. And then it's also sometimes called IGT. Now, like I said, I'm hopefully going to have someone else come on to talk a little bit more about breastfeeding in these kinds of circumstances.

But again, I just hope you can see here that there is a reason. And there might even be in many of these cases, there's something you can do. There might be something you can do to still help increase your milk supply.

But also the thing that you need is not just a lactation cookie or a lactation tea. I know I keep saying this, but it just like frustrates me so much because I just see this so often as being promoted as like the answer before even talking about seeing an actual lactation consultant to help you figure out what's going on. And I just think the truth is probably most lactation consultants just don't have the same marketing budget as a company selling lactation cookies or lactation teas or whatever it is or food bloggers.

They're not able to give actual advice on breastfeeding, but they still want to target pregnant moms, which I mean, like I totally get where that's coming from. It's not I'm not criticizing, but it just means that like the Internet is flooded with ideas for, you know, if you go on Pinterest when you're pregnant, you're probably going to see I would say 99 percent sure. I'm sure you're if you're pregnant and you're on Pinterest and especially if you're looking for things to cook to prepare for after birth, you're probably going to see something about some kind of meal or food or herb or tea or cookie or whatever it is, something that is supposed to boost your milk supply.

But this is just I just think it's just giving the wrong impression about how milk supply actually works. OK, like I said, sorry, I'm very passionate about this, but I think the main thing that I just want to express right now is if you suspect that you have low milk supply, it should not be considered normal and it should be considered a problem that needs to be taken seriously and given the dedicated support it deserves. And this is an issue that can go way beyond just galactic gogs, because just generally if you're experiencing low milk supply, you know, I hear so often people experiencing low milk supply and it kind of just gets brushed off as like, oh, well, some people just don't make enough milk.

No, like that is not support for you. Support for you is you think you have low milk supply. OK, let's get to the bottom and try and figure out really what's going on and how to support you through this.

And even if it's not about getting you, even if that support doesn't mean you'll actually ever reach a full milk supply, it might mean supporting you so that you know how to combo feed with formula feeding without that negatively impacting the milk supply that you do have. Or it might be about seeing if you can move towards the goal of exclusive breastfeeding or whatever it is like you deserve real support in that. And real support is not just here, take some herbs and see what happens.

And I think this is also just like my frustration is just in the context as well, that women's problems in general are just so easily shrugged off and not supported and women just deserve so much better, especially like when it comes to low milk supply. And I just think, you know, there's no way we should not be giving pregnant moms the message that low milk supply can't be supported because they're like if there's anything you need to know about low milk supply before you give birth, it's that there is support for you. You do deserve support and there's often things that can be done.

If you suspect you have low milk supply, you don't need a box of lactation cookies. You need skilled lactation support to figure out what's really going on and you need that support as soon as possible. It's not a case, you know, when it comes to low milk supply, this is the other thing.

It's not a case of just like, OK, well, I'll just take some herbs or just take some, you know, cookies or teas or whatever it is. I'll just take it first just to see if it helps and then I can get support because I know that that is like so tempting because usually just eating some foods is going to be cheaper than getting lactation support. But when it comes to low milk supply, the sooner that you address the problem, the more likely it is that you will be able to get back on track towards having a full milk supply.

The longer you wait, the harder it's going to be to get back to increase your milk supply. And in the meantime, you might be risking decreasing your milk supply further if it's something to do with like your baby's not latching well or if it's something to do with your pump settings or if it's something to do with how frequently you're feeding or in other words, how infrequently you're feeding. If it's something to do with those things, it's you're actually at risk.

If you delay seeking support, you're at risk of it getting worse. You're at risk of decreasing your milk supply further. So I really just encourage you to seek skill.

And this is why also part of your pregnancy planning is figuring out who in your area can you go to for very highly skilled support. And maybe budgeting for that in pregnancy can be helpful as well. If you don't need lactation support and you've budgeted for it, well good for you.

Now you have some extra cash on hand, but I mean, it's not just budgeting. You might even figure out if you have insurance, you may figure out what lactation support is covered by your insurance provider, just whatever you need to do to make it as easy as possible for you after birth to get that lactation support quickly. Setting yourself up for success in terms of support is going to be really important.

So let's talk about what that support actually might look like when it comes to actually how can we increase your milk supply, what actually is going to move the needle when it comes to increasing your milk supply. And what I want to say is like when I'm working as a lactation counselor, when I'm working with moms experiencing low milk supply, it usually takes at least an hour if not two hours to sort through all the different factors that might be contributing. And a lack of galactagogues is not one of those factors.

We might explore galactagogues, but only in the context that other significant changes are being made as well. So, for example, like here's what I actually look for when supporting people experiencing low milk supply. First of all, of course, I'm assessing for any of those underlying health conditions that I talked about in the mother.

And if it is any of these underlying health conditions that could be contributing to low milk supply, I'm going to be making sure that the mom is having support also for those health conditions at the same time. Sometimes as well, like it could be a health condition the mom doesn't even realize she has yet. So I'm definitely going to be wanting to refer her on to be having some blood work done or, you know, whatever the cause for concern is, having an assessment done to check on these possible issues.

The next thing that I look for when supporting people experiencing low milk supply would be signs of what I talked about before of hyperplasia or IGT where where the breast just doesn't have as much of the milk making tissues that you would expect. And now here's one thing. That doesn't mean that you won't have any milk at all.

You probably will still at least have some milk. It might be just that it's not the amount that meets your baby's needs completely. So you would probably be either having to supplement with donor milk or formula milk.

Most commonly, it's going to be formula milk. And what we would want to be talking about is how can we use formula to supplement without it negatively impacting the milk supply that you do have? How can we protect the milk supply that you do have? You know, if this is what you want to do, if you want to combo feed and you want to continue giving the breast milk that you do have and protecting the milk supply that you do have, that's something really important that we would talk about. So the next thing that I would look at is the frequency of milk removal.

So how often are you feeding your baby? Are you going long stretches where the milk is not being removed and it could be getting to the point where your body is starting to signal that it needs to slow down milk production? The other thing sometimes I will think about is how long the feed itself is. But that's, you know, there is such a range of what is normal when it comes to how long a feed is. So that's more like one piece of the puzzle that really what I'm trying to look for is how efficiently the baby is able to remove the milk from the breast and efficiency.

I mean, we could spend a whole episode on this one, but like that's going to be things like, am I seeing any signs of a shallow latch that would be preventing the baby from efficiently removing the milk? And like I was kind of hinting at, sometimes duration of feeding, like the length of a feed can be associated with how efficiently the milk is being removed. But that's not something that I that's not something I would ever take as like a single factor alone when I'm looking at a feed, if that makes sense, because there can't just be so much variation. But it's just one piece of the puzzle.

I'd also be looking at physiological factors in baby that might be preventing baby from being able to remove the milk well enough. Sometimes this is like just tension or tightness in the baby's body. Sometimes this could be something like a oral restriction, like a tongue tie, which is what which can prevent the baby from being able to move their tongue well enough for removing milk from the breast.

And again, these would be things that if I'm noticing tension or tightness or if I'm noticing something like a tongue tie, I'd be referring on for further support. Another thing that I would be looking at when supporting someone with low milk supply would be pumping, if they're pumping. So I would be thinking about, is their flange fit well? Are they using the right vacuum settings? Are they using, you know, what type of pump are they using? Is it an appropriate pump for their needs? And then I'd also be looking at if they are using formula, like I kind of talked about before, formula doesn't always have to mean your milk supply will be drastically reduced.

We just have to think strategically about using formula. And how can we do that in ways that it doesn't negatively impact your milk supply? And then something else that I would also be wanting to think about is just kind of what is the parent's expectation of what normal feeding patterns look like? And this is the one where, you know, I save this for last because obviously the very last thing that I, you know, you know, I wouldn't ever want it to come across as like invalidating a parent who thinks they have low milk supply. And obviously we're looking at, I should have explained, obviously we're actually looking at measurable factors of like, could you have a milk supply like your baby's weight? Are they not gaining weight as we would expect them to? That's going to be the number one thing that we'd be looking at.

But also we might be looking at things like diaper output. And maybe if you're, if you're pumping, I mean, pumping, it can be, it varies whether I would be looking at output when it comes to pumping. If you were exclusively pumping, I definitely would be considering like how much milk are you actually making? Okay, let me get, let me, let me just get back.

I feel like I kind of got off track there. I was talking about the parent's expectations around normal feeding patterns. So I think I was just trying to explain, yes, I would be looking at like measurable signs of like, does it seem like you actually have a low milk supply based on like objective signs.

But also, and again, this is not to want to invalidate anyone, but we do have a lot of misconceptions and just myths in society about how breastfeeding works and what to expect from breastfeeding. So I would definitely want to talk about the parent's expectations of feeding patterns. How often is it normal for a baby to feed? Because this is often the thing parents worry like, my baby fed an hour and a half ago and they already want to feed again.

Maybe I don't have enough milk or my baby is cluster feeding and, you know, cluster feeding is normal. Again, feeding at every hour and a half for some people that can be normal. There's also, you know, there's going to be times when your baby might be feeding more frequently than at other times.

Just again, it's like a whole big picture thing. Please remember, this is for educational purposes only, not for, this is not advice or an assessment or anything like that. My whole point, hopefully you're going to understand from this episode, my whole point is that you need to be speaking with a lactation professional to actually help you get to the root of what's going on in your case.

All that being said, my point is one thing that I would also be looking for when supporting someone with low milk supply or one thing that I would be offering when supporting people with low milk, someone with a low milk supply would be just a more realistic evidence-based understanding of what is normal when it comes to feeding patterns. And so there are also, there are going to be other things that I would be looking for, but because there are so many different factors that can contribute to low milk supply. But hopefully from kind of these examples of things that I would be looking for, hopefully what you can take away is that the thing I'm not looking for is the lack of galactagogues.

Like I said, galactagogues might be one thing we do discuss and it usually is something I actually do discuss, but it's really in the context of that's like there's other really big changes that are going on. Because galactagogues alone are not going to be the strategy for increasing milk supply. So as a pregnant mom, I hope what you'll take away from this episode is low milk supply is not normal. Galactagogues are not going to be the only thing to reach for if you are experiencing low milk supply.

You do need and deserve skilled lactation support to address whatever is going on that is contributing to your low milk supply. But as a pregnant mom listening to this, what I really want you to know is that low milk supply is not something you should expect. It's not something that is just a normal part of breastfeeding.

And unless you already know that you have one of those health concerns, and in which case I would hope that you are already speaking with an IBCLC, but for the most part, you should very, very, very, very much, uh, you should, what am I trying to say? You should go into birth and into life with your new baby expecting that you should have a full milk supply. And if it seems like that's not the case, if you get there and it seems like you don't have the full milk supply or you have any concerns, the first thing to do is seek lactation support, ideally from an IBCLC, but there's also other places you can get lactation support. So I'm going to wrap it up here.

Let me know if you have any questions about anything I shared in this episode. You're always so welcome to reach out to me on Instagram. Send me a DM @motherbabywellbeing on Instagram.

I would be more than happy to answer any questions or direct you towards somebody who could answer your questions. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or actually wherever you're listening, would you do me a favor and leave a review for the podcast? This, it is my dream to continue to offer this podcast completely for free for moms and to just give as much support and free information as I can. Your reviews really help me to continue to do that.

You could also share this episode with another mom, a pregnant mom or a breastfeeding mom who would benefit from this information. Let's just support each other and thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for spending your time with me today and I'll see you soon with a new episode.

Bye for now!