We recently connected with Mallory Roberts and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Mallory, thanks for joining us today. Was there an experience or lesson you learned at a previous job that’s benefited your career afterwards?

I had been a SLP for about 4 years when I started working at a pediatric outpatient clinic. My passion in my previous setting was in swallowing disorders. When I started at this position, no one was treating infant swallowing difficulties. So, with a co-worker, we developed a sub-clinic to support this population. However, there were “more seasoned” SLPs working within a different department of the hospital. I was shaking things up and doing things much different than had been before. The senior employees were not too thrilled and began sabotaging my work. One even went to the licensing board twice and both times, the case against me was dismissed. This was extremely scary for me as a professional but more as a mom who had to support her family. Losing my license would be detrimental for both. I left shortly after the last incident. I still struggle today with the ideas of therapists who have been doing this “longer than I’ve been alive” trying to dismiss my work. My experience at that hospital, though, taught me that there is always an opposing side. To everything single decision, thought, idea in life, someone will be there to dispute it. But their thought or opinion doesn’t change the goodness that I do for people and families every single day of my life. Their experiences are different than mine; therefore, their actions and reactions are different. And while they may serve a particular family experience better than me, I do the same. Additionally, these attacks against me and my work literally prepared me for the onslaught of different opinions brought on by social media and keyboard warriors.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a licensed Speech Pathologist by trade. I received my bachelors and masters degree from Southeastern La Univ in Louisiana graduating in May of 2011. I had no interest in the pediatric population at all and began my career exactly where I wanted: the nursing home population. Within a year, I was promoted to Area Manager and working with other therapists across Louisiana. As a therapist, my focus was on swallowing disorders particularly in improving quality of life. Due to my own moral and ethic differences, I left. I took the first opportunity that found me and landed at a pediatric outpatient clinic. A population which I was least interested in … at the time. I quickly realized the lack of support within feeding difficulties there was in this population as well. And I dove in. The politics surrounding pediatric care and what other providers knew concerning my scope of practice was astounding. I teamed up with an occupational therapist and a MD. We started a feeding clinic. It took years… years!… of reaching out and advocating to begin getting referrals and acknowledgment of our skills and abilities for supporting this population. Then I started having my own children. And I had direct experiences with the amount of dismissing and gas-lighting parents receive on a daily basis for concerns of their child. I was an experienced feeding therapist, and the misinformation and misguidance for basic feeding support was just sad. I had been working years to change the medical model for handling swallowing but the billions of babies who didn’t have medical concerns were not even close to receiving the education needed for effective feeding. –And sleep and regulation and digestion and growth!

So, I created The Feeding Mom, LLC to address that specific need. I started slowly through social media – creating parent guides to support parents who weren’t receiving the services they needed or for those who wanted the additional education to feel supported and knowledgable in their feeding journey. During that time, I expanded my work into other disciplines. I took continuing education not just geared to SLPs, but to OTs and PTs speaking on muscle use and integrating body functions. I took doula certification courses in infant feeding, massage therapy coursework, myo-functional therapy certifications and then I found craniosacral therapy. This coursework was a career changer. It brought all my experiences together and has made the additional changes I wanted to see in my clients.

I still have the parent guides: Oral Movement (birth and up), Baby Unwind (body movements and craniosacral work for parents) and the Feeding Support guide (which walks through everything bottle feeding and troubleshooting the most common feeding difficulties no matter how they feed). I also do virtual 1:1 support coaching for parents around the world and in-person 1:1 sessions for those in my local area.

My mantra is: love YOUR journey. This really brings in the individual needs of each family dynamic and shows parents that feeding should be joyful like every other part of parenthood.

Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?

I often think about this question and used to say I would have pursued physical therapy instead. The connection between the body and swallowing function is widely missed. And the impact of a speech pathologist and their specific skillset is widely dismissed. However, there is no discipline that teaches holistically. My work and the direction of my career has been my own pursuit. I have meshed together different continuing education courses based on what I want to accomplish with my care. In this, I have realized that with any base degree, I would have to build the skill set I wanted on my own.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

The ability to take myself out of other family dynamics. This is important because while I can sympathize with the families I work with, I have to be able to release my personal attachment to what’s going on and address them specifically. I don’t think you can treat a family effectively without removing your own bias and emotion. That is a skill that I continue to evolve, and I am consciously aware of during my sessions.

Sometimes people say to put yourself in their shoes which will help build rapport with those you work with. That, in my opinion, is a fine line. I connect through validation and then treat through facts and movement.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thefeedingmom.com
• Instagram: infant.feeding.specialist
• Youtube: thefeedingmom