Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrea Jorgensen-Perry.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Andrea. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I basically fell into the world of lactation following the birth of my first child in 2003. I was professional chef and dedicated to the idea of breastfeeding my son, due to a family history of autoimmune disease, Crohn’s disease that severely afflicted my mother and impacted our whole family. My best intentions really didn’t prepare me for the reality of what breastfeeding would be like. My son was born with a previously undiagnosed heart defect and we were separated soon after the birth. He was transported to the N.I.C.U. at Massachusetts General Hospital to be monitored by the cardiac team until a valvuloplasty procedure could be performed. I was given an Ativan and a breast pump! And thus began our breastfeeding relationship. Long story short: it took a LOT of support from various lactation consultants and volunteer breastfeeding counselors to figure things out. We were lucky, and my son and I had what I would describe as a challenging, but altogether successful breastfeeding relationship. Grateful for the support I received during what was a very vulnerable time for us, I wanted to give something back. I became accredited as a volunteer breastfeeding counselor through La Leche League. Through the process, I became fascinated with the science of human lactation. I facilitated local support groups and provided phone counseling to breastfeeding families as a volunteer for a few years before receiving a call from Dot Norcross and her team at Lactation Care. They offered to pay me for work similar to what I was doing for free. Seemed like a no-brainer as I was ready to shift out of the fast-paced world of the Boston restaurant scene. Dot’s team provided me with the instruction and mentoring required to qualify to sit for the exam to become an Internationally Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC). I have been board certified since 2009, providing lactation education and support to Boston area families. I truly love my work. I am still feeding people, but now the menu is a lot easier to manage!
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Parenting through breastfeeding and navigating through a career change while mothering two young children has not been easy. I could go on for days about the kind of “structural” challenges to breastfeeding that families face here in the United States. Hello, family leave anyone? I have been humbled, to say the least, by the kinds of choices one has to make as a mother. I have been frustrated both personally and professionally by the way our health care system treats mothers and babies as separate entities, primarily it seems to streamline the billing process, rather than providing continuity of care for the mother-baby dyad. I am lucky to have the luxury of time when working in private practice. Parents are amazed when they come to us and we spend 2 hours per session with them. We have the time to get to know them, to really “get them”, with a depth of understanding of their challenges, hopes and goals that no 15-minute office visit could afford. We have seen tremendous changes in the landscape of healthcare, the romanticization and demonization of breastfeeding, the mommy wars, the enactment and eventual enforcement of ACA and “guaranteed” coverage for lactation services, and await to see what Trumpcare will bring to the world of lactation. Keeping on top of it all and providing evidence-based information and support to families is always a challenge and always rewarding.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Lactation Care has been in business for almost 30 years. We got our start when company founder and President, Dot Norcross, IBCLC began providing lactation support and breast pump rentals out of her home in Newton Highlands, MA. This was back in the day, before personal use breast pumps, such as the Medela Pump in Style, were available. Dot hired her first paid employee, Mary Bell, to help manage the billing and inventory of the many rental pumps in circulation. Over the years, the company has evolved to provide in-office breastfeeding counseling, consultations and feeding assessments to families in the greater Boston area. We provide education and support, retail products such as breast pumps and accessories, nursing bras and tanks, and provide corporate lactation services to companies large and small across the country. We receive referrals from pediatric and obstetric practices, by word of mouth, and through the web: Thank you Google and Yelp! We are unique in the kind of compassionate, continuous care we provide. Families come to us for a two hour office visit and we continue to follow them until they are truly launched, often over the course of several months. I am lucky to work with a team of women who are mentors, in the truest sense of the word. I have been part of the team here for not quite 10 years now. Dot, Danielle, Raechel and Mary have inspired me to be the best that I can be as a lactation consultant and as a working mother. Our combined experience coupled with the depth of sincere caring that we provide to families in a matrix of professional support to one another really sets us apart. Families working with us have an experience that is qualitatively different.
What were you like growing up?
I was the quintessential tomboy growing up. No one from my youth, seeing me in my brother’s hand-me-down Tuffskins, would have ever predicted that I would have a career in a field that is so very gynocentric. I have always been fascinated with food and biology. I spent a lot of time outdoors, collecting small creatures from the wooded area behind my childhood home. I began cooking at a very young age, partly out of necessity, because my mother was chronically ill and often hospitalized for weeks on end, and partly out of sheer curiosity and amusement. While my brother and sister would cook to survive, I would take it to the next level and experimented with crepes and empanadas for fun. I was painfully shy, and preferred to pass the time puttering around outside, in the kitchen or in my dad’s garage workshop tinkering. I excelled at math and science and went off to college intending to become a female Jacques Cousteau and spend my days studying sharks. College life set me on a different course, where I took an Anthropology course to fulfill a requirement and set off in a new direction of study: medical anthropology. I took a job off-campus, cooking for a gourmet food store to pay my rent and discovered to excitement of professional cooking. After graduating from William and Mary with a degree in Anthropology I set off for culinary school in Vermont which felt far more reasonable than years of field work in a jungle. That was a spring board to life as a chef in Boston.
Pricing:
- 2 hour office visit and feeding assessment $165.00, includes follow up phone support
- Hospital grade rental pump $2.50 per day plus tax
- Baby scale rental, $1.75 per day plus tax
Contact Info:
- Address: 25 Fisher Avenue
- Website: www.lactationcare.com
- Phone: 617-244-5593
- Email: info@lactationcare.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LactationCare/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/lactation-care-newton-2
- Other: http://lactationcare.com/blog/
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