Transcript: Breast Milk Leaking? Discover This Mum’s Innovative Eco-Friendly Solution!

This is a text transcript from The First Time Mum’s Chat podcast. The episode is called Breast Milk Leaking? Discover This Mum’s Innovative Eco-Friendly Solution! and you can click on the link to view the full episode page, listen to the episode and view the show notes.

Helen Thompson: Welcome to First Time Mums Chat. I’m Helen Thompson, your guide to helping you navigate early motherhood with confidence. In each episode, I share insights and tips to help you connect with your baby, reduce stress, and tackle common challenges. If you are already subscribed to the show, thank you so much, mums you always are amazing and if you are here for the first time, make sure you subscribe to the show.

You will find First Time Mum’s Chat on all the platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, as well as now on YouTube. Today, I’m chatting with Garrett Wood Kusmierz, the brilliant mind behind Kozēkozē, a company that’s changing up the postpartum care game. Garrett faced severe breastfeeding challenges, including extreme engorgement and leaking but she didn’t just stop there. She created an innovative, sustainable bra solution.

Have you ever wondered if there’s a better way to handle breast milk leakage? Join us to discover Garrett’s inspiring story and learn how her journey can help make your postpartum experience smoother.

Don’t miss this episode if you’re looking for practical solutions to postpartum struggles and want to hear how one mum turned her breastfeeding nightmare into something every mum can benefit from. Hit play now and find out how you too can overcome postpartum challenges.

Hi, Garrett, and welcome to First Time Mum’s Chat. I’m delighted to have you here today. I’m really excited about hearing about the challenges you faced with breastfeeding in your journey and how it led to the formation of Kozēkozē. Can you please start by telling us about your early experiences as a mum?

Garrett Wood Kusmierz: Sure, I like to think I’m an entrepreneur at heart. I also always wanted to be a mom and as much as I loved working. I had five jobs throughout my twenties, I did a lot of different things. I was so convinced that I had to build a successful business prior to becoming a mom because I wanted the freedom to be able to choose how much I worked and how much I could be with my kids.

So I had a coaching business and I had written a book and I had a podcast prior to my son being born. When my son was born, although I had a really easy conception journey, a very easy pregnancy, really traumatic birth, I got home from the hospital and I ran into another problem, which was severe engorgement and severe leakage.

The current, most common solution for when you’re having a ton of extra breast milk leakage is putting pads in your bra, but some pads are toxic and my bras did not fit. They had become way too small in those first three days and they lasted for about three months of being so engorged.

My bras were too tight and I tried putting a camisole on so I could put the pads in there and it left like red marks. I like to sleep in just like a big t shirt, I don’t like to sleep in bras anyway, but I basically would sleep in my husband’s big t shirt and sleep on a towel in my bed because I was leaking onto my sheets every single night.

Although I had found myself in a place in my life where I had a stable coaching business, that was on my terms and I was happy with that, I just knew I had to create a better solution for breast milk leakage and I really wanted to invent the world’s first absorbent, disposable bra, made of biodegradable materials so that it can hug me and keep me dry around the house and overnight.

So by the time my son was 18 months old, I was done breastfeeding, I felt a little bit more like myself again. I decided to set off on that journey and started kozēkozē. Two years later, we’re almost ready to launch the bra product but we’ve developed some other products along the way.

Helen Thompson: Wow, you certainly had a very interesting journey at the beginning. Leaking, that’s hard. If you’re not breastfeeding, that must be hard as well because if you choose to go onto the bottle and you choose not to breastfeed that must be hard, because they want to use you for breastfeeding the baby.

Garrett Wood Kusmierz: Yeah, I think there’s a lot of discussion about women’s choices and I believe that whatever the mom feels is best is best. So many of my friends had had trouble producing enough milk that I felt guilty with my pain point, because, you know, I’m dripping milk all over the house. I would literally wear a t shirt and a sweatshirt in the summertime inside my house in the air conditioning, just to leak into the sweatshirt and I was changing my sheets all the time. So my back hurt because I went from very small breasts to gigantic engorged breasts and for a while I felt bad even admitting how much I was struggling because I knew there were so many moms that struggled to make any breast milk. I eventually had to just admit to my husband and myself that this is really hard for me, this is my unique journey and I’m really, really struggling.

I remember one day I literally had two giant mason jars, like these glass jars that we put vegetables from the garden, and I literally just put two of them on the floor and I was sitting on a chair, leaning over them, just dripping milk in it. It took me a long time to regulate my supply and it was very frustrating.

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In your experience, what are some common myths about breastfeeding and how do they impact the way you take care of yourself after giving birth or how other mums feel during that time?

Garrett Wood Kusmierz: Yeah, obviously I think it depends what country you find yourself in and and even within, where I am the United States, there’s different cultures between different states. I think the South is a little bit more conservative, the Bible Belt area is more conservative, and cities, there’s more people, there’s more public opportunity.

I found a lot of the women in my area, at least in my phase of life ,were all first time moms. So, to be honest, I didn’t have a lot of opportunity to even think about breastfeeding outside of the house because I couldn’t imagine doing that. I needed all my pillows in my bed to even get in the right position but I do think that culturally, it’s like, humans have been on this planet for hundreds of thousands of years and we existed for so long off of breast milk, and whether it was your own mothers or it was another mother nursing you, it’s a very natural thing that has made us who we are, and it’s a luxury. I think that not everyone has the ability to produce milk, which is very frustrating for moms and I think the conversation just needs to come back to empowering the mother, because I know that even though I was so fortunate to have a lot of milk, I had to question, do I keep going because I’m in physical pain, my clothes don’t fit me.

The amount of times during the day I spent just cleaning myself up or cleaning my haakaas that were catching the extra milk that I was dripping or doing extra laundry. It required a postpartum doula that we were able to have just one day a week for a couple of weeks. My husband’s help, he has paternity leave and then my own mom flew across the country to be with me for a little while. If you don’t have the support to relax into who you are and what you’re choosing, even if you want to breastfeed or you don’t want to breastfeed, you may not be able to make that decision because it’s expensive to buy formula, but it’s also expensive to take the time off of work to be present to your body.

So I think the cultural conversation needs to change is how do we support the mom? How do we have community around first time moms and anyone experiencing a new baby that they’re in charge of taking care of.

Helen Thompson: Yeah, I agree with all of that. I think that’s very true, especially in your case where you had so much milk coming out. Some mums probably don’t have much milk coming out and they may panic thinking, oh gosh, help, I’m not producing enough.

With your experience of what you’ve gone through and you mentioned the bras earlier that are coming out soon. What would you recommend to a mom who was either going through the leakage or not producing enough milk?

Garrett Wood Kusmierz: Yeah, I have a couple of things I want to share. The first is I am not a certified lactation consultant, so I’m not going to claim to have any perfect advice, but it really brings me back to setting yourself up to be supported by, whether it’s an extra set of hands or extra time off of work or your partner having extra time off of work because we know that when you are breastfeeding, you’re experiencing a boost in oxytocin and going into that oxytocin is really like a moment of surrender and relaxation and if you are in fight or flight, it’s very hard to get your body to actually relax into that state. There’s a lot of frenetic energy, rightfully so around, Oh my God, I have to feed my baby, how am I going to feed my baby, what if I don’t produce enough milk? The baby’s screaming, I’m exhausted, so if you don’t have someone there with you that’s like, It’s okay, hold on, let me get the nipple shield for you or I’ll go to the kitchen and grab the haakaa. The amount of times I was comfortable in my bed and ready to nurse and realized I forgot the haakaa, which is a device I personally love that helps catch the milk or the nipple shield that I used for a few weeks when my nipples were really sore or just the right pillow and my mom or my husband would go get it for me. Those early moments mattered so much because I could say, oh, I have support, I can do this. I can focus on, you know, being present and relaxing versus being in this frenetic fight or flight energy, which let’s be real, when you’re not sleeping or your baby’s not napping, you’re already kind of in fight or flight so the more things you can do to relax and feel supported and have support, so that you can access that blissful bonding feeling of the oxytocin drip with the letdown I think the better. I also named in that, riff, I just went on a couple of things that I personally loved.

I really did love using a nipple shield that I was given at the hospital because my nipples were so sore, which is why we eventually went on to develop an easy to use nipple balm that opens with one hand in case you’re holding the baby. It has a ceramic applicator, so you don’t have to dunk your finger in a jar and it’s organic and non toxic and all those good things. Besides a nipple balm and a nipple shield, I also, like I mentioned, love the haakaa that helps catch the milk that you may leak on the other breast while you’re feeding and yeah, just having support.

Helen Thompson: So, just a question that came to mind when you were talking about that. People talk about pumping milk, but in your situation, because you were leaking so much, how would you go about pumping?

Garrett Wood Kusmierz: You know, it’s a great question. So in my journey, my milk came in so fast and furious that it was more about either nursing it to my son or catching it in the haakaa and so this is not a haakaa, this is actually one of our products, it’s a pea cup, but it’s made of the same material. The haakaa, it suctions to your breast so that it kind of stays in place. Then when you’re letting down on, let’s say the left breast, the right breast may leak. I would actually leak up to six ounces on the right side while I was feeding on the left and then I’d still nurse on the right side, most of the time. So I actually was told by one of my lactation consultants, if you’re going to be around the house and you’re using the haakaa to have a little bit of an extra stash and you have an oversupply, don’t do any extra pumping, it’s really not necessary.

So I was either leaking on the floor, leaking into jars, using the haakaas. I would actually try to wear the haakaas even just around the house, but they don’t stay on, so that was futile. Anyway, around, nine to ten weeks postpartum, my son stopped latching on the right side. I don’t know why, if he just wasn’t comfortable, or I wasn’t comfortable, and I used a hand pump that was a lot less pressure and I barely had to use the, it kind of looks like a spray bottle, the pump and I would just hand pump the right side in addition to using the haakaa when I would nurse on the left. I did that until about 14 to 16 weeks postpartum and then when my supply regulated just a little bit, my son ended up enjoying bottles so we had this surplus of milk.

So my husband was sometimes giving him bottles and I began pumping about every four hours, I believe, mainly just cause I would be so full and it was very hard to delay that. So, I did a mixture of pumping and breastfeeding from about four and a half months until 12 months.

There’s a lot of people on the internet. I had seen fear-mongering posts that were like, if you introduce a bottle, they might not latch and I was a little bit nervous about it because we introduced the bottle early, because the haakaa was catching so much milk that I just was like, well, we have it, let’s put it in a bottle. I was too tired to give into my anxiety, even say anything or do anything and my husband tried the bottle and we were really lucky that even until the last day I breastfed, we were doing both bottle and breastfeeding. I know that’s not the case for everybody, but I was happy that we could really share that experience.

Helen Thompson: You mentioned postpartum engorgement was one of the catalysts for you to start your business kozēkozē. Have you come across any surprising tips or tricks that really helped with your breastfeeding challenges?

Garrett Wood Kusmierz: Hmm. I think for me the aha was actually deciding that I was going to create this absorbent disposable bra and actually bringing it to life because it’s been kind of like having a second kid over the last two years because it’s been so much work. I think what’s surprising about the engorgement is that, yes, I got stretch marks, but I was just shocked at how my breasts eventually went down, if that makes sense, and how it really, for me, they’re definitely much bigger today than they were before I was pregnant or breastfed, but that they can really show up and become so engorged and then go back to something semi regular. I know that maybe this is TMI, but it’s something I wish I had known, was it’s not so much to do with the engorgement, but I didn’t realize how big your nipples get throughout the pregnancy journey and then postpartum and I just thought, Oh my gosh, why did nobody tell me and are they ever going to go back to normal and they do, or I guess as close to normal as they could be. That part was really interesting to me and as I look ahead to hopefully having another baby, I’m really curious to see what my body will be like the second time, because I know that some women who have severe engorgement with their first don’t necessarily have it with the second. So I’m really curious. I know genetically my mom had it every time, so I’m prepared for that experience, but I think as far as dealing with it, hot showers were also another nice thing that I would do. I would leak a lot in the shower and as long as, my son didn’t really need to be fed, hence why I was showering, to have a little bit of that release felt really nice to have heat there.

Helen Thompson: Just out of curiosity, you mentioned that they do go back to normal. How long did it take for your breast to actually go back to normal and not feel so engorged?

Garrett Wood Kusmierz: Yeah, I mean, I think what’s interesting about my journey and now, of course, I’m so curious, I’m asking all of my friends during their breastfeeding journeys as well. I was ridiculously engorged for about four months. Then it was like a very, very, very slow seven months. of moving semi close back to a more manageable breast size by the time I finished breastfeeding.

But my next point is the case for most women is that until you’re done, done, like there’s no more breast milk coming out, you’re not producing breast milk, you really won’t see your breast be completely normal until you’re paused or you’ve stopped breastfeeding.

I do know a few women who only had a little bit of engorgement the first three days out of the hospital and then their breasts were pretty much the exact size that they were pre baby and they’ve stayed the same the entire time. So I do know that that happens but for the women that we’ve talked to for kozēkozē and in my friends and family circle it does seem that it’s really on those first three to five months that your breasts are the biggest and then they kind of come down, but they’re still bigger until you’re just done and then you have to see where you land because you’re not producing milk and you do not have the hormones associated with the milk present in your body anymore.

Helen Thompson: That’s interesting. Cause I know some moms and this is a personal choice breastfeed until the baby’s about two years old. So you mentioned that if you stop breastfeeding your breasts go back to normal, but if you’re still feeding your child at two years old, surely it would take longer for your breasts to go back to normal. I’m just speculating, I wondered what your thoughts were on that.

Garrett Wood Kusmierz: Yeah, I think that the longer you do it, the more your body gets as close to normal, even actually during the breastfeeding, because your body works with what your baby needs and there’s a little bit more flow. I felt like it really took me, gosh, I remember I went to London when I was seven months postpartum and I still felt like my supply was like is it working is it not, am I engorged today, am I not? So I think the longer you do it, the more regulated you become. Then once you stop, there’s gonna have to be some time to come back to a new type of homeostasis, because the longer you are breastfeeding, my guess is like you said, like it’s going to take a while to adjust to a new normal of not breastfeeding.

I’m always fascinated by the women whose breasts really don’t change much at all from engorgement, postpartum to breastfeeding a two year old to not breastfeeding at all. I wish that was my case. I know that our products, our bras aren’t going to be for everybody because not everybody is a super leaker, but I do know the pain point when you are one. Obviously in my case I want to support those people that have a similar pain point.

Helen Thompson: I definitely get that. So, what gaps do you see in the postpartum care industry and how does kozēkozē address these?

Garrett Wood Kusmierz: Yeah, you know, I like to say that I’m standing on the shoulders of giants because there are a few companies in the personal care space, at the grocery stores or big box retailers here in the States that there’s starting to be a nice selection of postpartum products on the shelves. I think that there’s a level of innovation that we’re starting to see, with direct to consumer companies or small mom and pop shops that are growing that will hopefully get to those shelves and I hope that we’re one of them because there was a lot of space to fill and there are, at least in America there are a few companies that filled them very quickly.

So the quality is not really there. So for instance there’s a company that has let’s say 20 different postpartum care products under their brand and there was one that was like a postpartum underwear that is disposable and I bought them, I was curious, like, are they soft, are they comfortable? They felt like sandpaper. So it’s great that there’s an option and why are they so uncomfortable? So our pillars as a company are innovation first and foremost, we’re standing on the shoulder of giants, but how can we innovate and do even better.

Sustainability because again, there’s also a lot of companies that produce a lot of things really quickly that may or may not be best for the environment or for mom. Is the packaging sustainable, is it non toxic? So sustainability and health wellness are part of one of our pillars.

Then also just ease of use. There are some products on the market that are great, and I will never say a bad thing about haakaa. I love the haakaa product. I wish I had invented it because I used it so much, but it didn’t stay on that well. I’m not cut out to do that at this moment in my life and our company’s journey, but, why is it so hard for that to stay on? Why did it take 30, 40, 50 years for a breast pump to be wearable. So I just think that it’s a space that is shockingly overlooked or has been overlooked in our world when the reason we’re all here is because we were birthed and somebody’s body had to recover after that process. Really, to me, the gap is more holistic on a whole, that we still have a long way to go and we still have a lot of improvements to make and it’s all in my opinion to make the mother more comfortable so that she can better bond with baby.

Helen Thompson: I love that. I think that’s really good because it’s so important for that oxytocin and that bonding experience and having a company like yours who helps moms do that as well as baby massage and whatever else moms can do. I think it’s so valuable because sometimes you just don’t feel like bonding with your baby. Sometimes you just think, oh, I just want to go to sleep, I’m just so tired or I’m so frustrated. Sometimes you just want to push your baby away saying, no, enough’s enough, I need time for me because it’s a huge change for moms.

Garrett Wood Kusmierz: Yeah, so when I had my son, it was a four and a half day long birth, I pushed for five hours. Yeah, I pushed for five hours. I, had every intervention in the hospital. I had choreoamniitis, I got an epidural that didn’t actually work. I felt everything. It was just a really traumatic experience where I didn’t sleep for four days because I was in labor for four days.

We know that sleep deprivation is a form of torture and what got me is I went through four days of that and then they send you home with a baby to take care of who doesn’t sleep. That experience for me was painstakingly hard because I’m in physical pain, I’m physically recovering and I have to do this remarkably challenging thing I’ve never done before, which is take care of another human. So what’s interesting is about three weeks ago, I actually had an egg retrieval. I decided to go through IVF after unexplained infertility. The fun fact is we ended up finding the root cause of my infertility once I started IVF, but I digress.

I did the egg retrieval and you’re very swollen. You have to go under anesthesia. My husband drove me home from the hospital and he was like, you rest, you’ve been through a lot, he took the day off work, just relax, watch your shows, take a nap and I literally in that moment, yes, I was in pain, yes I was tired, but it was maybe one hundredth of the experience of my birth with my son. I thought I know that the whole point of postpartum is to bond with your baby and that’s just what happens, but it really felt therapeutic for me. It was almost like the postpartum rest I never got, three years later because I was laying in bed sore and tired and able to just recover.

I think we forget that moms go through a physical experience that is very hard to recover from, and then they’re supposed to take care of a baby on top of it. So I really resonate with what you say because I very recently had this experience of actually getting to rest and it was really lovely. So yes, not wanting to take a minute to yourself, especially if you have spit up on you or leaked breast milk or you’re having postpartum sweats, you really want and need that time to yourself yeah, when you can get it.

Helen Thompson: No, absolutely. How can people find out more about your company and these bras that I think would be very beneficial to mums who are leaking?

Garrett Wood Kusmierz: Yeah, so we have a website that is kozēkozē.com. We’re launching the bra and we were supposed to do it right after the election this year, but with product delays and shipping delays, we decided to move it to January . But our pre order is live on our site. Our ceramic applicator nipple balm is on sale on our site.

It’s also on Amazon, and we have a podcast that’s called the Kozēkozē Podcast which I hope you will be a guest on someday and we’re on Instagram, which is at kozekozemama and we post a lot of updates there as well.

Helen Thompson: Well, thank you Garrett, for being on the show. I’ve actually learned a lot about breastfeeding. I’ve spoken to people who are actually lactation consultants, but they’re the professional side and it’s been really intriguing for me to actually talk to a mom that’s gone through it from her own experience. So thank you very much for being here. It’s been a great pleasure talking to you.

Garrett Wood Kusmierz: Thank you for having me. I’ve really enjoyed talking with you as well.

Helen Thompson: Thank you for joining us on this episode of First Time Mum’s Chat. I hope Garrett Wood Kusmierz’s journey has inspired and informed you. If you found value in today’s episode, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an update. Share this episode with other mums who could benefit and don’t forget to leave a review. Your feedback helps us grow.

You can learn more about Garrett and Kozēkozē by visiting the links in the show notes. Thanks for listening and I’ll catch you next time.

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