Challenges to Breastfeeding Professionals

Author(s):

Philip R. Muskin, MD, MA, DLFAPA, LFACLP

Key Takeaways

Female clinicians often face higher infertility and pregnancy complication risks, impacting their lactation goals.
Mental health professionals encounter unique lactation barriers influenced by cultural and psychodynamic factors.
This study is the first to investigate lactation experiences specifically among mental health professionals.
The survey is open to mental health professionals who have lactated or plan to, with a deadline of December 31, 2024.

Fill out this survey if you are a clinician who lactated while working.

New Africa/AdobeStock

Many new parents, especially clinicians, set lactation goals of 6 to 12 months to maximize health benefits to their baby and themselves. Female clinicians have higher risks of infertility, subfertility, and pregnancy complications than their peers. Early research shows that clinicians are often unsupported in reaching their lactation goals and stop far earlier than they would advise patients regarding lactation. Psychiatry has its own unique barriers to lactation, informed by cultural factors and psychodynamic conceptualizations of reproductive organs. This survey seeks to discover the experiences with lactation of psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health workers. The investigators are from Columbia University Medical Center, New York University, Montefiore Medical Center, and the University of Arkansas. While there is prior research in several other medical and surgical fields, this is the first study investigating the experience of mental health professionals.

If you are a psychiatrist, psychiatric NP/PA, psychologist, psychiatric social worker, or master’s level therapist and you have ever lactated while working in these fields, OR you are currently expecting a child and are planning lactation, your survey responses are welcomed. The survey has been approved by the Columbia University Medical Center Institutional Review Board. I invite you to go to the survey, review the informed consent and participate. The study will close on December 31, 2024.

The link to the survey is: https://redcap.link/idtma6s0

If this survey is not for you, but you would be willing to pass it along to individuals who are interested in this area, please feel free to do so. Thank you for your interest in this survey. Again the link to the survey is: https://redcap.link/idtma6s0

If you would like to contact the PI (Dr. Adrienne Mishkin) with questions, please feel free to do so at adm2172@cumc.columbia.edu.

Dr Muskin is a professor of psychiatry and senior consultant in consultation-liaison psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York, New York. He is also a member of the Psychiatric Times Editorial Board.