Abstract
Have you ever thought back about the personal experiences that led you to your breastfeeding interest and career?
My own journey began in 1990, with the experience of breastfeeding my first child and with the help of a wonderful lactation consultant, Mary Rose Tully. One of the first lactation consultants in the United States and world-renowned even early in her career, Mary Rose spent time seeing breastfeeding dyads at WakeMed Hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I delivered my son.
At the time, I knew I wanted to breastfeed, but I had little breastfeeding training in residency (except for a brief encounter with none other than one of our ABM founders, Richard Schanler, in the Special Care Nursery at Baylor College of Medicine, in Houston, Texas 1 )! At that time, breastfeeding was not yet the norm. My son was born in that wonderful early-term window at 37 + weeks and was acting his age. He was not latching, and I didn’t know what to do (I hadn’t taken a breastfeeding class prenatally); the nurses were having trouble helping me. After normal daytime work hours, in walks Mary Rose Tully. With my pediatrician husband and pediatrician best friend at my side, Mary comes in and immediately gets him latched on! Albeit for just a short few sucks, until he popped off and coughed and sputtered, and turned a bit dusky, while she patted him reassuringly in front of the three pediatricians. To be sure, he needed to get rid of the swallowed amniotic fluid from birth to get to work on feeding, and after that everything was fine. (Mary later admitted to being a little bit nervous during that episode in front of three pediatricians, but she never showed any anxiety—not a bit!) (Fig. 1).
I loved breastfeeding my son and wanted to be able to help my patients but didn’t know how. I asked Mary if she would help train me, and so began many hours of shadowing with her at WakeMed, helping a multitude of dyads… so many hours that my back would be aching, and I wondered how in the world she was able to keep going!
Mary was so gentle with the patients and so encouraging to all. Because of Mary’s personal tutelage, I started helping patients in our busy primary care office at Kaiser Permanente in Raleigh and was guided by a new nurse practitioner and IBCLC, Christine Hoey, who joined our group. I took additional lactation training from Mary through the local Lactation Consultant Certification Review course, co-led by Mary Overfield, and was on the pathway to earn my IBCLC.
Then it happened… Mary asked me to present at an upcoming conference! I immediately said, “Oh no, I can’t do that.” And she responded, “Oh yes you can, and you will.” She asked me to give a talk on “Red Flags in the Breastfeeding Newborn” at the Art of Breastfeeding Conference in North Carolina, highlighting anatomic and physiologic characteristics that a lactation consultant would need to know. So, having never spoken at an organized lactation training conference and not terribly comfortable with public speaking in general, I jumped in somewhat reluctantly. It was a journey at that time, to gather content with approval, to make old 2 × 2 slides that we put in a carousel, and to join the lactation training circuit. Over time, Mary asked me to broaden my teaching content and include the importance of physician knowledge for breastfeeding support. She invited me to serve on many breastfeeding committees and groups, which built up my confidence and started me on my way.
April 1990 Mary Rose Weber Tully and Julie and Nicholas Ware.
Mary was instrumental in the development of the WakeMed Mother’s Milk Bank, 2 hosted the “Nursing Mothers of Raleigh” support group, and went on to develop the Mary Rose Tully Training Initiative at the University of North Carolina, Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute. 3 Over the years we gave many talks together and enjoyed each other’s company at many meetings and conferences, including the USBC (United States Breastfeeding Committee) and ABM (where we might have had a pajama party with our dearly departed ABM Founder, Miriam Labbok)!
I owe Mary so much, as do so many people whom she trained and inspired. She left us far too soon. I often wonder if Mary hadn’t taken me under her wing, if I would be doing what I’m doing today, and I ponder the question our own former ABM President, Alison Stuebe, coined, “What Would Mary Rose Do?” I hope that Mary would be proud of my continued efforts to share the journey that she started me on… beginning with breastfeeding my own precious firstborn.
Thank you, Mary, for giving your all to so many. The world is a better place thanks to your short time with us. We still miss you dearly.