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Growing Stronger Together is a podcast for people who care about children.
Growing Stronger Together was developed by faculty at East Tennessee State University, including members of the ETSU Health Department of Pediatrics, the ETSU Center for Early Childhood Learning and Development, and the ETSU Child and Family Health Institute.
East Tennessee State University is located in the beautiful Appalachian Highlands. We appreciate the financial support provided through a Community Health Improvement Site Investment from Ballad Health’s Department of Population Health.
Dr. Karen Schetzina (00:00)
Growing Stronger Together is a podcast developed by faculty at East Tennessee State
University for people who care about children and families. We appreciate support provided for
the podcast from Ballad Health's Department of Population Health and Tennessee Department
of Health's Maternal Mortality Prevention Program.
I am host Dr. Karen Schetzina and I am thrilled to welcome our guest today, Dr. Heather
Champney. Dr. Champney is Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Director of Community
Newborn Nurseries in the East Tennessee State University Department of Pediatrics. Today
she is here to discuss highlights of the ETSU Community Breastfeeding Conference. Dr.
Champney, welcome to the show.
Dr. Heather Champney (00:51) Thank you, I'm so excited to finally be here.
Dr. Karen Schetzina (00:54) We are glad to have you. So this conference that we will be
discussing today was made possible due to a community health improvement grant awarded to
the ETSU Department of Pediatrics from Ballad Health's Department of Population Health.
Conference content may be viewed through the ETSU College of Medicine's Department of
Continuing Education for Health Professionals website. Continuing education credits are
available and we will include the link in the show notes for this episode. So, let's get started.
First, I'd love for you to share a bit more about yourself and your career pathway.
Dr. Heather Champney (01:41) Haha, okay, well, I don't know if I can summarize very quickly,
but I'll try. ⁓ I was born and raised here in Appalachia in Johnson City, went away for college
and returned from medical school. So I attended the Quillen College of Medicine for my medical
school training and then stayed for residency where I trained as a pediatrician in the Department
of Pediatrics. After that, actually right about the time that I finished residency was when our
pediatric emergency room opened for the very first time.
And so I started my career there and I've worked there since it opened about 17 years ago.
That's been my main clinical work up until about the last year, year and a half. I've also done
some outpatient pediatrics with some folks in the community and then a lot of work in nonprofit
areas that are specifically focused on agriculture and food access and those sorts of things. I
also, I'm married and have slew of children that are now all teenagers or almost not teens
anymore and we live on a little farm where I grow flowers that bring me all kinds of joy and
happiness.
Dr. Karen Schetzina (02:53)
We are gonna have to have you back on the podcast to talk about other topics, but for now, how
did you get involved in the Community Breastfeeding Conference?
Dr. Heather Champney (03:06) Well, mean, obviously my role in the newborn nursery is directly
tied to breastfeeding, because that is one of the primary things that we have as a focus of our
education and our interactions with our patients, the parents and the families. So, it started just
naturally from that. And then our work in the past, years ago, when we had different
breastfeeding coalitions and groups in our region that were built to support them, I had been
tapped into those. And it just sort of full circle came back.
And ended up being a part of the amazing planning committee where mostly I just offered some
color commentary and listened to all of the expertise for the from the incredible people that were
on that committee.
Dr. Karen Schetzina (03:48) Why is support for breastfeeding needed?
Dr. Heather Champney (03:52) Well, I mean, I think some of it is just obvious common sense. I
breastfeeding is the natural way to feed an infant, the way mammals feed their children. And
while it is a natural process, it's actually really difficult and very overwhelming. And there's so
much input, especially these days from things like social media and just all of these outside
influences, that it becomes a really complex issue for some parents and it is such an important
piece of their, of that baby's development that really we need to be the people that provide that
initial support, that initial foundation and help kind of tie it all together and clear up some of the
misconceptions and support through some of those trials and tribulations. You know if you've
ever breastfed or supported someone who has, you know it's not easy.
It's hard work to get it established and to do it so that both the mom and the baby are
comfortable. So, I think it's just an imperative piece of what we do as pediatricians and other
providers who support moms and new babies.
Dr. Karen Schetzina (05:03) I agree, it's not always easy in the beginning and support is really
important. ⁓ Hopefully it gets a lot easier as the weeks and months go on. ⁓ Who should review
the conference content online?
Dr. Heather Champney (05:18) Well, gosh, anyone, anyone who has interest in breastfeeding or
supporting those who have breastfeeding goals. So, the obvious would be pediatricians or
family medicine physicians or advanced practice providers who directly give that care in the
outpatient setting, obviously in the inpatient setting in the newborn nursery. And then other folks
like lactation professionals. I mean, those are who gave a lot of the content from the conference,
but if folks are looking at becoming more engaged in that professional lactation community,
whether it be to become a CLC or just a peer support, or they're going all the way to get their IB
CLC, that kind of penultimate certification. I think this content would be very applicable to them.
But I also think if you're a parent and you're starting down the journey of breastfeeding or you've
been there and you want to be able to support other folks, it's really applicable to anyone who is
interested in breastfeeding in general.
Dr. Karen Schetzina (06:22) Could you tell us a little bit about some of the conference
presenters?
Dr. Heather Champney (06:28) I mean, it was a wonderful group of humans who presented. We
had our own Lydia Perry or Ann Perry that some folks know, and she has been a lactation
counselor in our region for ....A very long time. Most of us in the healthcare profession that that
work with lactation know and have been supported by her and she gave a great talk about ⁓
feeding that preterm infant. She works primarily in the NICU now and gives amazing support to
those families. She gave us a wonderful talk about that and then we had Dr. Ann Kellums. She
is a breastfeeding specialist at UVA and she talked about that really tricky subject of
supplementation versus not supplementing and did a great job of just kind of unpacking some of
the reasons why we go down that supplementation pathway even when we shouldn't and then
some alternative ways that we can address that.
And then Dr. Louisa Ferrara-Gonzalez gave two talks. One, I think my favorite one was really
talking about some of the mistakes that we make as medical providers and how we can work to
process and rectify those, including at the bedside with the family in real time, as well as with
our colleagues and with ourselves to really help reduce some of the shame that we might
experience from not knowing better at the time and learning to do better later on. She gave a
great keynote address about that. And then she also talked about bridging that gap between
breast and bottle feeding and did a really deep dive into the mechanics of feeding and how that
infant can get nutrition from the breast and from the bottle and to do it in a way that preserves all
of those important things that occur during breastfeeding like developing the motor skills with
the mouth and the ways that you can support a baby if the baby does need a bottle and holding
the baby and just all of those beautiful little pieces of it. It was a great conference.
Dr. Karen Schetzina (08:41) It really is such a diverse set of topics and speakers. Could you tell
us a little bit more about what people could expect to learn from this online content?
Dr. Heather Champney (08:56) Well, think a couple of things I mentioned. You can really learn
some of those early pitfalls when it comes to supporting that breastfeeding dyad. ⁓ Specifically,
the focus of this conference is the first two weeks of life. And that's really when those
breastfeeding patterns are established. They're not done in that time frame, but that's really
where you're building that important foundation. So, learning about ways that you can end the
very first few moments of that outside of the womb relationship that that parent and baby have
together ⁓ and ways that you can support that, if the mother has chosen to breastfeed. I think
you're going to learn a lot of incredible tips about that that are rooted in science, they're rooted
in physiology, and they're important pieces that I think... probably intuitively know, but we don't
necessarily always remember it. And certainly, when we're rushed, we have a high census or
there's a lot of activity going on or there's a lot of ⁓ disruption in the patient's room. All of those
things contribute to how well we connect with the patient and how well we support them. And I
think really all of these talks give us some tips about how to better engage with our patient in the
moment and in those critical first 24 to 48 hours of life that we typically have with them in the
newborn nursery setting.
They also, ⁓ we had quite a few community resources that were mentioned that support above
and beyond those first couple of days to hours of life. ⁓ And I won't remember all of them, but a
few things that we talked about, the support that ⁓ WIC gives to moms, the 24-7 breastfeeding
hotline that is ⁓ staffed always by a lactation professional. So those middle of the night woes
that typically at three o'clock in the morning when mom is desperate and the partner is over in
the corner pacing because we don't know how to support - it's a it's a way for that parent to call
and get in the moment real-time professional support which I think is just an amazing tool. ⁓ A
couple of other things that we talk about is the Ballad Health Strong Starts program and
specifically the Baby 360 program within that, that really looks to support not just the mother, not
just the baby, but that entire relationship, the full 360 as the name implies, of the relationship
that is that mother-baby dyad. And there's a lot more above and beyond just the lactation
support. All of the other things that are required to have healthy, normal attachments and
relationships, things like access to food and transportation and mental health resources,
physical health resources, all of those things are addressed quite nicely within that program and
I'm sure I'm sure there are others I'm not remembering right now.
Dr. Karen Schetzina (11:59) It really does take a community to support breastfeeding and ⁓
there's benefits to the community from breastfeeding. So, we'll definitely ⁓ include details of the
resources you mentioned in the show notes for the episode. I wondered, ⁓ are there one or two
topics from the conference that you'd like to discuss further?
Dr. Heather Champney (12:24) Well, as you know, but not everyone in our audience knows, I
love trauma-informed care. It's one of my favorite things. And I really love how this, especially
the initial ⁓ lecture in this conference really does a deep dive into that. So ⁓ looks at how all of
our experiences leading up to that moment can impact that relationship. ⁓ And that being that
us as the caregiver, as the providers, and that is of the mother and her experiences. So, we
know that everyone has experienced some sort of adverse experience, be it in childhood or
adulthood, there's been some sort of cumulative effect of those experiences and they impact
how we relate to one another and how we perceive other people's interactions with us.
So, I think that was a really empowering focus of that particular discussion to help us all
reframe, give ourselves some grace of things maybe we've not done correctly in the past, and
then also give us a bit more of a perspective looking at that mother, you know, removing, I
mean, it is the buzzword in trauma-informed care, but it's really important. It's taking away the
what's wrong with you and turning it into the what happened to you. So, what has happened to
that mom that might impact her perception of her ability to feed her infant.
Might be driving some of her desires and thoughts and all of those sorts of things and gives us a
few more tools to engage, think. I thought that was a really powerful part of that particular talk.
And then I think another ⁓ piece that was really important that I learned from this conference
that I maybe hadn't paid attention to in the past, or maybe I just didn't know it, was some of the
tips of bottle feeding a baby to reduce some of the traumatic issues that occur with bottle
feeding. And trauma is maybe not the right word for that, but Dr. Gonzalez gave a great visual
and ⁓ verbal description of how to feed a baby with a bottle ⁓ to really mimic the support and
the connection that occurs with breastfeeding, including the types of nipples and how to pace
and really how to support, physically support the infant in the real time. And I thought that was a
really powerful ⁓ visual and verbal kind of education there.
Dr. Karen Schetzina (14:57) I agree with you. So lots of great information in the conference. Are
there any other resources that you'd like to highlight?
Dr. Heather Champney (15:09) Well, I mean, we have a lot of lactation professionals in our
community. And that professional term is a catch-all. We have everything from IVCLCs to peer
support. They are embedded in clinics. They also have their own outside ⁓ businesses, clinics,
type of ways to access them. And I think it's really amazing that we have such support both
inside the hospital with our lactation professionals and outside. And I just strongly encourage
any professional who's taking care of a mother-baby dyad, if you need support, you don't know
how to offer the education or you don't have the time or that sort of thing. Figure out who is in
your community and refer your patients to them. You yourself can do this conference and other
courses to kind of empower yourself with additional knowledge. And I think it's just an amazing
gift that our little neck of the woods has all of these resources here to support. It is, as you said
earlier, it takes a village to raise a baby. And I think we have a pretty good village here.
Dr. Karen Schetzina (16:18) I agree and it's exciting that the lactation workforce has really been
growing in this region and in the state of Tennessee in recent years. Well, Dr. Champney, thank
you again for talking with me today. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap up?
Dr. Heather Champney (16:38) Just thank you. It's wonderful to be a part of this community and
to really play at least a small role in providing a ⁓ good start for our amazing community.