Dr. Monica Martinez Wilhelmus, Dr. Samantha Ahle, and Dr. Julie Monteagudo have a few things in common. They all hold advanced scientific degrees — Dr. Martinez Wilhelmus is a professor at Brown’s School of Engineering, while Dr. Monteagudo and Dr. Ahle are pediatric surgeons. They are all working moms. And they all share a passion for making a difference in the lives of breastfeeding parents.
“We’ve all gone through the experience of breastfeeding and pumping,” said Dr. Monteagudo. They “know how challenging that is, particularly for professional women.”
Getting nutrients to young babies is essential for their development, but scientists have yet to crack the code on how exactly breastfeeding works. “Although humans and other mammals have been breastfeeding forever, we actually don’t have a very good understanding of how that all works,” said Dr. Monteagudo.
The Institute of Biology, Engineering, and Medicine’s (I-BEAM) Maternal and Neonatal Health Collaborative wants to change that.
Motivated by Working Women
Dr. Martinez Wilhelmus, Dr. Monteagudo, and Dr. Ahle want new moms to know they aren’t alone.
Dr. Monteagudo has worked extensively on advocacy for breastfeeding mothers in medicine, helping with lactation support and developing policies around pumping in the workplace. As a pediatric surgeon, she consistently encourages new mothers to breastfeed, citing the numerous health benefits for their children, especially infants with medical challenges.
But she’s found that the support for breastfeeding moms is often lacking.
“Every woman that has had a child can tell you, it feels like up until the moment the baby comes, you matter. And then the moment the baby is born, it’s as if the mom doesn’t really matter anymore,” Dr. Martinez Wilhelmus said.
Dr. Ahle has seen the same challenge when training medical residents — some of whom are working moms. Providing residents with “the time and support to do the things that are assumed and expected for most moms in the perinatal period” can be challenging with the equipment currently available for lactation, Dr. Ahle added.
“Watching how challenging it is for someone to be a trainee and a mom — especially a surgical trainee and a mom” motivated Dr. Ahle to make a difference in the experience of breastfeeding moms.
“Being a provider that takes care of pregnant women and children, and then going through that experience myself, really made me want to figure out how we can make things better,”said Dr. Ahle. “And to make things better we need to better understand the physiology.”
Grounded in Physics
Dr. Martinez Wilhelmus’ background is in fluid dynamics. Her lab has worked extensively at the intersection of biology, oceanography, and environmental science. After she had children, she started examining breastfeeding from a physics perspective.
“We know a lot about the composition of breast milk, the benefits to the mom and baby in terms of nutrition and prevention of diseases,” she said. “In terms of how it works — just how the body produces milk, how it flows through our breasts, and how the baby will ingest it — I was very surprised that there was not even a basic understanding of the process.”
Her engineering expertise — combined with Dr. Ahle and Dr. Monteagudo’s clinical experience — has allowed them to approach the challenge of breastfeeding from different perspectives.
“This collaborative has a lot to offer in terms of understanding how milk flows, how it changes over time, some of the properties of breast milk, and really getting a better understanding of the fluid dynamics and the physics of it,” said Dr. Monteagudo.
The team hopes to eventually form a center for neonatal and maternal health — where engineers, basic scientists, and clinicians come together to tackle the problems facing new parents and their babies every day. With their preliminary research into breastfeeding, they’ve already developed the foundations for a unique approach to addressing maternal health.
“The way we look at this problem would be first through the lens of physics: just consider this to be a fluid structure interaction problem, onto which we’re incorporating other disciplines,” said Dr. Martinez Wilhelmus.
Brown has a strong school of public health and biomedical engineering program, so Dr. Martinez Wilhelmus believes it could be the perfect place to advance research into maternal health more broadly. “It’s thanks to the whole support system at Brown that this is starting,” she said.
Developed From Ground Zero
While other studies have the benefit of years of prior research to build on, the Maternal and Neonatal Health Collaborative is — in many ways — starting from ground zero.
“There’s no model that’s been created of a lactating breast,” noted Dr. Ahle. As a result, the breastfeeding products on the market are also lacking. “If you look at the range of products that exist, very few are science-based,” Dr. Martinez Wilhelmus said.
The team has spent the past few months strategizing how to start their work, while navigating a challenging funding landscape. In the coming weeks, they hope to involve some master’s students in their research. Eventually, the team hopes to develop new lactation products based on their research findings.
“When you’re doing something that’s never been done before, it’s an important part of the process — and fun — for us to think about who are the right people and what are the right things that we need,” said Dr. Ahle. As the team adds new collaborators, they are thinking about what practical tools could supplement their work.
“Do we need a radiologist who can help us with an ultrasound or a mammogram to figure out what things look like?” asked Dr. Ahle. The Collaborative also needs patients who are interested in being a part of their research.
Despite the challenges of starting from scratch, the team is committed to its vision of improving the breastfeeding experience for all parents. “We’re able to send women to space and bring them back on the same day we carry very thin and powerful cellphones; we’re riding in robotic taxis,” Dr. Martinez Wilhelmus said. “Why not this?”