This month’s Cheers for Peers goes to
Karmarys Maldonado
Karmarys is a bilingual PC that is approaching her first year with the Breastfeeding Peer Counselor Program. She has had great success with convincing prenatal moms to fully breastfeed. She has a natural way of explaining things that makes a mom feel comfortable and knowledgeable to succeed. This was the case with a referral Karmarys received when the mom was 7 months pregnant. She was expecting her first child and planned to combo feed. Karmarys worked her magic and by the next call, mom had changed her goal to fully breastfeeding for 6 months. Then came the baby…baby was constantly crying and mom was exhausted and in pain. She gave baby some formula and reached out to Karmarys over the weekend, for help with setting up her pump. At this point, she was ready to exclusively pump or switch to formula feeding. Karmarys helped her with her pump, taught her laid back breastfeeding and how to get a deeper latch. Mom immediately felt the difference in baby’s latch. Karmarys continued to support mom through more challenges, including mastitis, and baby is now 5 months old and mom is close to making her goal of exclusively bf for 6 months! Mom is grateful, and said she would have given up if it weren’t for Karmarys’ support. Karmarys, you are a rock star!