Could your thyroid be causing your low milk supply?

A Little Bit About Brandy Cummings Before We Begin…

Brandy Cummings is a mom, clinician, and certified preconception, pregnancy and postpartum nutritionist. She is the owner and face behind her practice, Pivotal Origins which focuses on helping support parents with their unexplainable postpartum symptoms. Through peer-reviewed research practices, Brandy and her team is able to help parents with making sense of their unexplainable postpartum symptoms and treating them with effective research-based solutions. Brandy opened her practice in 2016 in response to trying to overcome her own health issues due to the impact they were having on her life. Through her own pregnancy experiences, she also realized that there were major gaps in support from preconception throughout postpartum and wanted to help in bridging that gap. She is trained in functional medicine which involved looking at the root cause of your symptoms rather than simple trying to treat the symptoms you are experiencing.

Through her own struggles with her health and seeing multiple doctors, she was able to see a doctor that specialized in functional medicine that was able to look at her symptoms holistically and hone in on her thyroid and the potential it had for causing the symptoms she was experiencing. This influenced how brandy operates in her own practice which, according to Brandy, looks like, “Those first couple of sessions, we are just really diving deep. I offer functional lab testing, and so I can really look at how things are working on a biochemical, on a cellular level in a really profound and comprehensive way. But sometimes Western medicine doesn’t do. I’m never one to have an attitude of us versus them or that functional medicine is better than conventional medicine. I really, truly believe we’re better together. And so always just working to bridge that gap and offer people the very best that both modalities have to offer because they both have lots of pros.”

This brings us to the focus of this post – the impact that your thyroid can have on different facets of your health.

What is your thyroid and what does it do?

You might know your thyroid is that little butterfly organ in your throat that’s really important but you’re not entirely sure why. This little butterfly organ plays a role in so many aspects of our lives – more than you might think. Essentially, the thyroid aids in specifically in hormone production, metabolic regulation, development and growth, calcium regulation, and interacting with the hormones produced by the pituitary glands’ thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH).

Your Thyroid and Milk Supply

When it comes to milk supply, thyroid disorders have the potential to impact your milk supply and causing it to be low. The crazy thing is, a lot of providers are resistant to checking a patient’s thyroid when they are struggling with milk supply concerns. During the postpartum period, you are experiencing a huge hormonal event where it is possible to experience low milk supply as a result of something going on with your thyroid. When asked more about this, Brandy states, “… you’re stressed, you’re overwhelmed. So your adrenals are being affected. I work with a lot of parents who are exploring low milk supply. And I say, When’s the last time you had your thyroid check? And they’re like, Well, during pregnancy, it was fine. I’m like, Well, now you gave birth and things change in the body. So it might not be anymore. So we should get that checked out again.”

Thyroid Disorder and Pregnancy

Let’s focus on your thyroid during the pregnancy stage for a moment. During this stage, your thyroid health is essential since it produces really important hormones. During pregnancy – particularly the first trimester – the baby is using the mom’s thyroid hormones for its development.

When discussing the thyroid and its impact during pregnancy Brandy states, “During pregnancy, the baby is using the mom’s thyroid hormones throughout that first trimester. When our thyroid is off, that’s one of the reasons why our thyroid can contribute to increased miscarriage, because the baby is also dependent on the mother’s functioning thyroid during that first trimester. Afterwards, the baby’s own thyroid hormones can kick in. But this is one of the reasons why I’m always talking about preconception prep and first trimester”.

Not only this, but during pregnancy, your thyroid plays a large role in the success of a healthy pregnancy. When your thyroid is off you have an increased risk for miscarriage, preeclampsia, preterm labor, and postpartum hemorrhage. You also have an increased risk of c-sections as a result of the other complications that can happen during pregnancy. Thyroid problems don’t only impact parent carrying the child, it can also impact the baby’s neurodevelopment during the first trimester. It doesn’t just end after you give birth either.

During the postpartum period, even if your thyroid was normal during pregnancy, after you give birth you have increased the risk of postpartum autoimmunity going up. What can be causing this autoimmunity? According to Brandy, “there is this thing called microchimism, which is basically this mixing of blood between mom and baby. Sometimes we can launch a response to that mixing of blood and that can contribute to it. If we have delivery via C-section, there’s more of this microchimism, so there’s more chance of that happening. And then also just the rapid rebound of hormones, right?” So all of the things…” Thyroid disorders can also be caused by nutrient deficiencies. Let’s talk a little more about that.

Your Thyroid and Nutrition

In simple words, your thyroid is nutrient dependent. Basically, every organ in your body is nutrient dependent and needs certain nutrients to operate properly. More specifically, Brandy states, “So if we don’t have those nutrients, it’s going to be harder for that to happen. Our gut health, if we have leaky gut or if we have something going on in the gut, overgrowth, Candida or SIBO, something going on, all of that can have an impact.” Your thyroid can be impacted by many different factors like stress, chemicals from our environment, underlying infection, and the things that you are putting into your body. In terms of what you are putting into your body, your thyroid is dependent on you eating important nutrients like selenium, zinc, and iodine. These can come from foods like Brazil nuts, shellfish, and organ meats.

Your gut health also plays a role in the functioning of your thyroid. Something like having a gluten sensitivity can affect your thyroid function. If you are sensitive by any specific foods and still continue to eat those foods, it puts your body in overdrive where it is constantly having to launch the immune response to attacking those foods – which can be exhausting to the body. Let’s talk more about leaky gut which can be understood as a state where the integrity of your small intestine is being compromised.

When it comes to the definition of leaky gut, Brandy states, “So in our small intestine, the lining of our small intestine is a whopping one cell thick. And so if you think about all those cells lined up in between those cells are something called tight junctions. So we can have leaky gut in two ways. If those tight junctions are not intact and not so tight, things can start coming through the middle in between those cells. Also, depending on the health of the cell and what’s going on through different transporters, different compounds And these can also come actually through the middle of the actual cell. And so when that happens, when compounds are coming through the small intestine and entering the bloodstream, when they shouldn’t be, well, now our body sees it. Our digestive tract is a closed system, right? From mouth to anus, it’s a closed system. It’s just a tube. What’s in our digestive system, you could say, it’s not really in our body because It’s this closed system. But once those compounds come out and into our bloodstream, now our bodies can see it and we can launch an immune response to it. And so if this is happening again and again and again, that’s where we have…”.

Leaky gut is caused by eating foods that we are sensitive to, chemicals, and pesticides that leads to an imbalance in your microbiome. Stress – of course – can also impact your microbiome as well as the infant microbiome. In terms of specific foods that Brandy recommends to support hormone balance postpartum and during pregnancy, she recommends getting the best quality of food free of chemicals, hormones, and pesticides. Not only this, but brandy recommends eating a variety of nutrient dense foods – like egg yolks that are a good source of choline. Liver is also superior when it comes to meats that are full of folate, B12, preformed vitamin A (no more than 10,000 IUs) and iron which are essential during pregnancy. Don’t like liver? They make liver capsules that you can take! Brandy also recommends eating warm foods, broths, and warming spices after birth as they really aid in healing after birth.

What’s it like to work with Brandy?

In walking me through the process of working with her, Brandy emphasizes that it depends on what stage of their journey they are in. This is where Brandy introduced the word she created, “pannatal“. This means the entire period from preconception to postpartum. Brandy particularly enjoys working with someone from the preconception stage in order to be part of the entire process and have the time to do preconception prep. Brandy describes this preconception prep as, “usually with my one-on-one clients, the initial couple sessions are all about data collection. I have a really intense, not intense, but in-depth intake form that gets filled out. I take in all of that information and I map things out on a timeline of your whole life from when your mom was pregnant with you until now and everything that has happened, big events that have happened in your life, maybe different procedures that you’ve had or different sicknesses that you’ve had or all these things that could be contributing to where we’re at now.”

Once this is all mapped out, Brandy maps out all of the symptoms that you have and divides it into different structures or different functions of the body. Wherever this mapping falls determines where Brandy will start the next stage. Brandy then conducts different and extensive lab tests (genetics test, urinary organic acids test, stool test, looking at the microbiome, environmental toxic test, and the Dutch test for hormones). This is just the first couple of sessions when working with Brandy! Depending on what Brandy sees from the data, she is able to then design a deep and thorough plan. Brandy’s method is particularly unique as she uses a highly individualized approach.

Next Steps…

Want to listen to the full podcast? Follow the link here and listen to the full nearly hour long podcast episode with Brandy Cummings! Pivotal Origins is also on Marco Polo where Brandy reviews all of the current research when it comes to functional medicine and functional nutrition which can be found at the link here! Use code VIP Trial for a free month!

Make sure to visit our website, shellytaftibclc.com, where you can check out our online parenting community, the baby bistro. You can also follow us on social media at @shellytaftibclc on Instagram. Thanks for reading and see you on the next blog!