When Jacob Engelsman walks into a lactation training, he is usually the only man in the room. It is something he has grown used to. In a field built almost entirely around cisgender women and their newborns, his presence stands out, and so does his specialty: providing lactation support to queer and trans families who have long been an afterthought in the birth worker world.
Engelsman is an Atlanta-based certified lactation consultant, nanny, and author of “Lactation for the Rest of Us,” a guide for queer and trans parents published in February 2025 by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. His path to this work was neither direct nor obvious. It started with a career in food service, a cross-country move, and a simple realization that he was very good with babies. What it became is something rarer: a professional resource for families navigating one of life’s most intimate transitions without a roadmap built for them.
If you have ever tried to find yourself in information that was not written with you in mind, whether you are a queer couple preparing to welcome a baby, a trans man with questions about testosterone and milk supply, or a healthcare provider who wants to do better by the patients walking through your door, Engelsman’s story and work are worth paying attention to.
From Pastry Chef to Postpartum Doula
Engelsman spent nearly 20 years in food service, working as a baker, line cook, pastry chef, and manager. He was good at it. But when he and his husband relocated to Atlanta so his husband could take a position at a university, Engelsman saw the move as an opening to figure out something new.
“I kind of sat down and considered what would be the ideal job for Jacob,” Engelsman said. Two things were clear to him: he genuinely liked taking care of young children, and he had no interest in medical school. His mother had called it “baby magic” when he was small, this ease he had with infants. He wanted to find a career that put that to use.
His research landed him on postpartum doulas, non-medical professionals trained to support families through pregnancy, delivery, and the weeks that follow. He completed a postpartum doula training in person and then did something that proved to be as valuable as the certification itself: he started reaching out to every doula in Atlanta, one coffee at a time.
“I just Googled Atlanta doula and then just had coffee and lunch with a million different people,” he said.
One of those people was a friend who asked him to attend her birth. He agreed, completed a birth doula training, showed up, and realized quickly that it was not the right fit. Being a birth doula, he explained, is closer to parent care than child care. The work centers on helping adults navigate an experience, not on the hands-on time with an infant that he was actually after.
It was useful information. Not every path that looks right from the outside turns out to fit once you step inside it. Engelsman kept moving.
A Clinic Job That Opened Every Door
The pivot came through a referral. While networking in Atlanta’s birth worker community, Engelsman was introduced to Christy, who ran a lactation clinic called Breastfeed Atlanta. She offered him a job as her secretary. It was not, he clarified with some amusement, playing with babies. It was scheduling consultations, organizing breast pump rentals, and filing insurance claims.
But the job did something else. It embedded him in the city’s birth worker community and put him in daily contact with new families, some of whom needed childcare.
“I’m in touch with families,” he said. “I’m seeing families who just had new babies who might need a nanny.”
He started nannying part-time alongside the clinic work and eventually shifted to nannying full-time, which remains his primary income. The clinic job also planted a seed. About six months in, Christy suggested he pursue his lactation consultant certification.
The process takes roughly three years. It requires 14 college credits, 90 hours of lactation-specific education, and 500 clinical hours. For most candidates, the clinical hours are the hardest part. Engelsman was already working in a clinic.
He studied, accumulated hours, and sat for the certification exam during lockdown, part of the first cohort to take the test online. That timing turned out to matter more than he expected. The pandemic forced lactation support into telehealth, and the field discovered it worked. Unless there is something specific happening with a parent’s anatomy or a baby’s oral structure, most consultations can happen remotely. That shift opened the door for people who could not or would not come into a clinic in person, including people who had reason to worry about how they might be received.
The Gap in the Resources Was Obvious Once He Saw It
While working through his lactation education, Engelsman was reading deeply. Textbooks for lactation consultants, academic journals, breastfeeding guides written for parents. A pattern became impossible to ignore.
“It dawned on me that there’s all of this information that would be super relevant and super helpful for queer and trans families,” he said. “But even in the books about lactation and childbirth, it’s not for queer and trans families. Every book is assuming the person reading it is a CIS woman who just gave birth.”
The book that needed to exist, he decided, was a guide for trans men and nonbinary people who are pregnant or considering pregnancy, for trans women and cisgender women who want to induce lactation, for the partner of a pregnant person who wants to share in the feeding experience. A book that did not assume its reader’s gender or the composition of their family. He told himself: if this book still does not exist in five years, he would write it. Five years passed.
One of the most common misconceptions Engelsman encounters is that lactation is tied to having a uterus. It is not. “I’ve had people say to me, I can’t induce lactation because I had a hysterectomy,” he said. “That is fully irrelevant to lactating. The presence of a uterus, the presence of ovaries does not matter at all in the context of lactation.”
Lactation is driven by the mammary glands and the pituitary gland. All humans are born with mammary glands. Inducing lactation without a pregnancy is possible and, in practice, not uncommon. The typical protocol involves taking birth control pills for a few months to mimic the hormonal environment of pregnancy, then stopping and immediately beginning to pump. The pumping, he emphasized, is the most important part. It signals to the body that there is a baby who needs to eat.
Engelsman also addresses a question that comes up frequently among trans men who have given birth: whether they can resume taking testosterone while breastfeeding. The research suggests the answer is more nuanced than many assume. While testosterone does enter the milk supply to some degree, it is not well absorbed by the digestive system, which is why injections are used to administer it in the first place. “When the baby gets that milk that does have a higher testosterone level,” he said, “it does not lead to a higher testosterone level in the baby’s blood. The baby just poops that testosterone out.”
What the Lactation Field Still Needs to Do Better
Engelsman is careful about what he is and is not asking from the lactation community. He is not telling anyone to change their language or overhaul how they practice. He is asking for something more basic.
“I’m asking people to basically be nice,” he said. “If a lactation consultant doesn’t feel comfortable working with trans communities, that’s fine. Just know somebody who you can refer them to. That is such an important piece. That is literally the bare minimum.”
A referral, even a simple one, changes that experience entirely. Walking into a clinic with a specific need and being told the provider cannot help, with no next step offered, puts the burden back on the person who was already looking for support.
Engelsman’s broader argument is that inclusivity in lactation support is not niche. Most of what applies to queer and trans families applies to cisgender families too. Most mastectomies are performed on cisgender women. Many cisgender women are on hormone treatments. People who have adopted, people who are using surrogates, older parents, parents who simply want both partners involved in feeding, all of them can benefit from better information about how lactation actually works.
“We have historically just been an underserved population,” he said. “And I think we can’t let this fall by the wayside.”
The work he describes is not dramatic. It is telehealth calls, referrals to local consultants, research in lactation journals, and a book that took five years to write and that someone needed to write. The families reaching out to him are, in his words, very invested in and aware of their own physical bodies. They arrive with good questions. He arrives with answers they could not always find somewhere else.
This article was inspired by an interview with Jacob Engelsman and Amy Stone on The Art of Imperfect Adulting podcast. https://imperfect-adulting.captivate.fm/listen https://www.youtube.com/@imperfectadulting To hear more compelling conversations like this one and receive special offers from our guests directly to your inbox, join our email community today.
Lactation: Interview transcript Jacob Engelsman with Amy Stone | The Art of Imperfect Adulting | April 2026
Amy Stone [00:00:04]:
Welcome to the art of imperfect adulting. Jacob Engelsman, are you ready for a fun chat?
Jacob Engelsman [00:00:11]:
I am. Thank you so much for having me.
Amy Stone [00:00:13]:
You’re so welcome. I start all of my conversations with each and every guest, asking them what part of the world they call home. So where are you today?
Jacob Engelsman [00:00:21]:
Right now? I live in Atlanta, Georgia.
Amy Stone [00:00:25]:
Love at home of horrible traffic, I hear. But I have bad traffic where I live, too. So what is something that you love, not the traffic or at least enjoy, about the city or the town you call home?
Jacob Engelsman [00:00:37]:
So one thing that I so answer to the question is the food.
Amy Stone [00:00:45]:
Okay.
Jacob Engelsman [00:00:46]:
But an interesting thing that I just learned about the food in Atlanta is that. So we have some friends who just moved to Philly.
Amy Stone [00:00:53]:
Okay.
Jacob Engelsman [00:00:54]:
And in Philadelphia, you can get something called you can get chicken wings that are Atlanta style. And I did not know what Atlanta style meant in my mind. My immediate assumption was that the wings were smoked, because that’s a big thing here. Atlanta style wings up north is lemon pepper, which is also a big Atlanta thing.
Amy Stone [00:01:16]:
Oh, all right. That is. I mean, it is a funny thing how we have the regional food that doesn’t always match with what the region actually is. One of my favorite things about that that I’ve learned in the last couple years is Detroit style pizza, which several of my friends who grew up in New York, in Detroit were like, that’s not actually a thing. That’s only like a. That’s only a marketing technique. I was like, well, it’s delicious. It’s delicious either way. So I don’t actually know, but I really did enjoy it. All right, today we’re not talking about pizza or, you know, wings, although delicious, we’re talking about a time in your life where you moved and you changed careers. And I am openly going to admit that one of the reasons I selected this topic to have you on the show is that when you described what you do for your new career, I. It’s something that I was really. I was curious about. I’m very excited for this conversation. Are you ready to talk to me about all this stuff?
Jacob Engelsman [00:02:11]:
Yeah, happily. Love to talk about it.
Amy Stone [00:02:13]:
How long ago was it that you moved you and your family moved to Atlanta?
Jacob Engelsman [00:02:21]:
Nine years.
Amy Stone [00:02:22]:
Oh. So quite a while. You’ve been there, You’ve settled in?
Jacob Engelsman [00:02:26]:
Yeah, yeah, we moved here. Well, and we just moved here from Athens, which is about 45 minutes away. Before that, I’ve lived in New Jersey, Kentucky, North Carolina, Iowa, California, and now Georgia. So we’ve been kind of all over, but we were in Iowa My husband getting his graduate degree, his master’s. And then we wanted to move back to the South. He’s a librarian. We got. He got a job at UGA in Athens, so we lived there for a few years. Then we wanted to move to, like, a proper city, but stay in the South. So now he’s at. He’s at a university in. In Atlanta. And. Yeah. So because me, my. And I don’t know, are we intentionally burying the lead here on one.
Amy Stone [00:03:22]:
We’re gonna get right to it. We’re totally gonna get right to it.
Jacob Engelsman [00:03:25]:
But. Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:03:26]:
So. Yeah. What inspired the move? So that’s what you were talking about. That. That was my next question. So when you said Athens, I was racking my brain. So that’. Town. So you guys were bouncing around, doing some. Some. So you were in Iowa for school, Graduate school. You moved to Athens, where I have been, because of the school connection many, many decades ago when I was also a student. You guys wanted to be in a city. And then. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about. And you. What job were you doing? What career sort of service were you in before you guys were. When you came to Atlanta? I guess.
Jacob Engelsman [00:04:04]:
Yeah. So I had. I’d been in food service since I was 15, and I got a job at McDonald’s.
Amy Stone [00:04:10]:
Okay.
Jacob Engelsman [00:04:11]:
And. And that’s the thing. It’s when you can cook like a. If you’re good at it. Like, I. I enjoy doing it. You know, it was. It was fine. And there’s lots of different things you can do when you’re working in food. Right. I was a baker for a while. I was a kid. I was in management for a while. I was a line cook. I was a prep cook. You know, there’s all sorts of fun, different things you can do, and. And if you’re good at it, you can get a job anywhere. So if we’re moving around a lot. Right. I can just go from restaurant to restaurant.
Amy Stone [00:04:45]:
The hours are tough.
Jacob Engelsman [00:04:47]:
The hours can be tough. Sometimes the hours are great. The best job I ever had, to this day, I was a pastry chef in fine dining. I worked from 6 until about 2, 6 in the morning. But I didn’t see another human being for the entire first half of my shift. I get there, the kitchen was empty. I could just take over and do everything I needed to do. Oh.
Amy Stone [00:05:13]:
Because it was like a dinner service. You were creating pastries for the dinner. Because the opposite is. If you’re like. If you want to be a bagel maker or a donut maker, that’s like 2am to 10 in the morning. Right. That’s like a rough shift.
Jacob Engelsman [00:05:27]:
Like time to make all the cakes and everything for, for dinner and. No, that’s the thing. It’s when people who haven’t worked in restaurants think of restaurants, you know, like line cooking. Yeah, I don’t do that. I would. I have done that. And I am very bad at that. I am not good at that at all. I get very frustrated. I get very yelly.
Amy Stone [00:05:49]:
I can see it. All right, so you come. So you come to Atlanta because you wanted to be in a city and, and then. So, yeah, I’m going to ask you to share a teeny tiny bit about your family as much as. As you’re comfortable doing. Because we’re. We’re just meeting you and I today for the first time, and you’re meeting the audience for the first time. So tell us a little bit about your family. You mentioned that you have a husband. So like. And you guys live in Atlanta, like, go from there.
Jacob Engelsman [00:06:13]:
Yeah. No, and it’s.
Amy Stone [00:06:16]:
Yeah.
Jacob Engelsman [00:06:16]:
So he works in university and just like being in academia, he’s very specific about the places he can work.
Amy Stone [00:06:23]:
Yeah.
Jacob Engelsman [00:06:24]:
So. So when we move to Atlanta, I. And it’s just us. We don’t have kids. We have.
Amy Stone [00:06:38]:
That was what I. So that is because leading into. I have not gotten to what you do now, but I like, had argue and I just had not talked and I know what your new job is. And I was like, all right, so are there kids? Are there family? Like, how did we get there?
Jacob Engelsman [00:06:51]:
No, we are committed uncles.
Amy Stone [00:06:53]:
Okay, Committed uncles. There we go.
Jacob Engelsman [00:06:56]:
Lots of nieces and nephews. We are committed uncles. And yes. So when we moved to Atlanta, he got his new job and kind of decided that, like, I’m. I’ve been in food service, you know, for 20 years. At that point, not 20, but nearly 20 years at that point, I and was just kind of done with that. You know, I wanted to explore something new. And there were two things that I knew, which is that on the one hand, I’m really good with kids and I really like taking care of young children and particularly infants. I’m just, I’m my mom. Like, even when I was a little kid, my mom always used to say that I had baby magic. Right. Like, there’s a crying baby. Give it to Jacob. And like, I’m just good with babies. Right.
Amy Stone [00:07:55]:
Did you have lots of cousins? Like nieces and nephews and cousins?
Jacob Engelsman [00:08:00]:
Yes, Yes.
Amy Stone [00:08:01]:
I feel like the baby skill sometimes comes to people in big families because they’re around babies.
Jacob Engelsman [00:08:06]:
I. It’s only me and my sister, but, like, my mom is one of nine. So I have tons of aunts and uncles.
Amy Stone [00:08:12]:
Yeah.
Jacob Engelsman [00:08:13]:
Yeah, I’ve got tons of. So, yeah, I’ve got tons of cousins on both sides of my family. And then. Right. So I. I knew that, A, I really like babies, and B, I’m not trying to go to med school. Right. I don’t want to be a pediatrician.
Amy Stone [00:08:33]:
Fair enough.
Jacob Engelsman [00:08:34]:
I looked up what. I kind of, like, sat down and considered what would be the ideal job for Jacob. And I figured out, like, what the word for that job was. And what I came up with was postpartum doula, which is for. For listeners who don’t know a doula. So there’s birth doulas, and they’re. There’s postpartum doulas, and they are. They’re not medical professionals, but they are people who have training in, like, helping you through pregnancy and delivery and the postpartum period, mostly from, like, an emotional point of view. And I know. I absolutely know that there’s going to be a dual listening to this. Who’s going to be like, well, actually, there’s. There’s more to it than that. This is the abridged version, and they’re using.
Amy Stone [00:09:34]:
I don’t know where the. I had not heard the word doula until, like, I didn’t. I don’t think I knew that word as a kid. I don’t know how long it’s been around. But there’s also. They’re using it and I think new ways. So the first type of doula I had heard of was the delivery doula that you’re talking about somebody who’s like, and these are my words, and it’s not my expertise. But you would bring them on as a part of your team. They sort of, like, will advocate for you and help you walk through the process. But I’ve talked to several people over the last couple years who are doing things like death doula. So using the same word but in a different situation. Situation. So I don’t know if this is an old word that we’re updating or if it’s a new word that we’re repositioning. I really don’t know.
Jacob Engelsman [00:10:18]:
So, yeah, it’s being used in a lot of different contexts to mean, like, somebody who’s helping people through transitions. So.
Amy Stone [00:10:28]:
So you pick this very intentionally and take doula trainings.
Jacob Engelsman [00:10:34]:
So.
Amy Stone [00:10:34]:
And what did you. Did you do this training in person? In person. Was it like you went and like side in person course or was it online?
Jacob Engelsman [00:10:40]:
Yeah, no, it was an in person course. And, And it was fine. I mean, I feel like I kind of learned a lot about, about the process and about like the community. Atlanta has a huge birth worker community and I. So after I did that training, I was reaching out to a bunch of other Atlanta doulas and so I just googled like Atlanta doula. And then I just had coffee and lunch with a million different people. And I met one woman who owned a doula agency who was pregnant and we got to be friends and she asked me if I would be her birth doula. And I was like, yes, but you know, I haven’t done a birth doula training. And she’s like, you’ve got six months. Okay, so. So I did a birth doula training and I attended her birth and I, I didn’t, I never got certified. Hers is actually the only birth I attended. I realized like being part of this whole community and, and learning more about the job, that being a doula is not actually what I wanted to do because being a doula is more like taking care. It’s more like parent care than child care.
Amy Stone [00:12:12]:
Yeah, that makes sense. I was, I was going to ask you, like you said, like, is you, you like, what was the dream? And so that’s, this is sort of the misalignment. I do have a question about you going through the training. I mean, absolutely gender this in a super old fashioned way just because it’s the easiest way to have the conversation. So I would, if you had said to me, amy, have you ever met any men that are birth doulas? I would have said no. Like I said, so when you were going through this training, like, were like, was it, were you the only like male gendered person in the room? Like, tell me a little bit about this.
Jacob Engelsman [00:12:50]:
Yeah. And that’s the thing is working like in my field now, like, I am often the only guy in a room.
Amy Stone [00:12:58]:
Okay. Yeah, no, I mean, you know, yeah.
Jacob Engelsman [00:13:04]:
So during, during like all of my trainings, I’m the only guy in the room or there’s like one other guy in the room and he’s a pediatrician. That’s a thing about, that’s the thing about, about my position now is a lot of people assume I’m a doctor.
Amy Stone [00:13:20]:
Because you, you know, which is just a statement on a co ed room that they would make that immediate assumption. Like the one guy in the room has to be. Not that you’re not deserving of the thing, but as A woman who, like, you know, has grown up with that sort of, you know, walk into a room and the person with the clipboard is. Is the person in charge that. That’s not as surprising as it could be.
Jacob Engelsman [00:13:41]:
So.
Amy Stone [00:13:41]:
Yeah, that is. So that is. That does not surprise me. Was it. Was. I mean, were you expecting that? Were you ready for that when you chose to go down this path of training, or was it an issue ever in the community and the sort of. As a professional sense.
Jacob Engelsman [00:13:58]:
Yeah, I. I’m not too surprised by it. But also, I am a person who, like, I have always been more comfortable hanging out with women.
Amy Stone [00:14:10]:
Okay.
Jacob Engelsman [00:14:15]:
Yeah. I. And I, you know, couldn’t, like, necessarily say why, like, my parents are a man and a woman and have a happy marriage, so. But, yeah, so it’s not like I didn’t have male role models, but I don’t know. I’ve just always been. Yeah, most of my friends have always been women.
Amy Stone [00:14:36]:
Most of the audience of this show was women. So. And I’m. And, you know, I’m a cisgender woman. Like, so that’s how I. That’s how I move through the world. So. Okay, so the dream. Describe then before you started. So before you started the first training for postpartum doula and you had really thought about it and were intentional about choosing this job description and the training, what did you tell us? A little bit more about what you thought the job was going to look like that it turned out, was not a perfect match.
Jacob Engelsman [00:15:08]:
I thought. I thought it was more like, Like, taking care of the baby and less like taking care of the parents so they can take care of the baby. Right. Postpartum doulas do a lot of, like, meal planning and cooking and cleaning and taking care of the house and helping out around there. Organizing. Helping the parents organize their life around having this new tiny human.
Amy Stone [00:15:45]:
Got it. Got it. As opposed to, like, a baby nurse, that’s a nighttime nurse who’s holding the baby and rocking the baby.
Jacob Engelsman [00:15:51]:
Right. As opposed to somebody who’s holding the baby.
Amy Stone [00:15:54]:
I get it.
Jacob Engelsman [00:15:55]:
And playing with the baby.
Amy Stone [00:15:56]:
Yeah. And that’s what you were wanting more hands on time with the baby, which is your special sauce. All right, so you do. You get connected. I think that’s brilliant that you look people up and you do coffees with all the people that are in this field. You meet somebody, somebody. You experience one. We take part in one birthing doula. Decide immediately that’s not your gig somewhere in here. Walk me through. You get a job at a lactation clinic.
Jacob Engelsman [00:16:26]:
Yeah. So then I found out that there was a lactation clinic called Breastfeed Atlanta where, like, while I was talking to everybody, one of the doulas in Atlanta was like, oh, you should talk to Christy. She runs this clinic. She’s great. So I was like, okay, so call up Christy, hang out with her. She. And she asks if I want to be her secretary. So my job is, is not, you know, taking care of babies at all. My job is scheduling consultations, organizing breast pump rentals, and filing insurance claims, all of which are important skills.
Amy Stone [00:17:13]:
But still not playing with the babies, though.
Jacob Engelsman [00:17:16]:
But what it did was it got me in the, like, a, I’m in the Atlanta birth worker community.
Amy Stone [00:17:24]:
Yeah.
Jacob Engelsman [00:17:25]:
And B, I’m in touch with families. I’m, I’m seeing families who just had new babies who might, you know, need, need childcare. Need a nanny at some point.
Amy Stone [00:17:40]:
Yeah, yeah.
Jacob Engelsman [00:17:41]:
And so I did. And, and so I was doing that part time and I was nannying part time, which is actually what I really wanted to be doing. And that’s really my, my day job now is I do a lot of nannying.
Amy Stone [00:17:55]:
Oh, all right, Very interesting. Okay. So that, that, that. I can see how that worked out. So first of all, I just want to say, so I’m in Miami, Florida. That’s my hometown. And I am thrilled to even find out that there is a lactation clinic in Atlanta. I don’t know if we have one here in Miami, because a couple decades ago when I was a first time mom trying to figure out this whole thing, I was really kind of chasing down lactation consultants in baby massage classes and wherever they were doing their workshops and hospital programs and stuff like that. But not, not a sticks and bricks, like, location. Like, this is where we go and we take care of it. I’m thankful for all the resources I found. Right. For sure. And, and so that is very. So you’re in this clinic, in all of that experience where this goes back to that sort of theme that I introduced with the training in all of my chasing down lactation folks and being in lactation spaces. I never met anybody named Jacob or that present. There was no male secretary at the anything. This was like the, the red room of womanhood. Like nurses and mommies. The only, the only, the only he. Hims were wearing diapers in the room. And so like, like, I’m curious how, like, how did you, how did you get involved? How did you fit in with the lactation community? How did it feel like? Tell me, tell me how that Worked out good.
Jacob Engelsman [00:19:24]:
So I have a question for you.
Amy Stone [00:19:26]:
Yes?
Jacob Engelsman [00:19:27]:
Can I curse on this show?
Amy Stone [00:19:28]:
You sure can. What’s the reason for not like for having your own production company if you don’t get to make the rules? Right.
Jacob Engelsman [00:19:35]:
So the reason I asked is because when we were initially talking about me having a job at, at the clinic, Christie was like, yeah, I feel like it would just be feminist as for a lactation clinic to have a male secretary.
Amy Stone [00:19:52]:
I mean, yeah, absolutely. With the, you know, you know, with it, because, yeah, I totally see that. You know, I mean, it could also be like, you know, people would be like, am I in the right spot? You know, like, who is this guy? My first experience with like somebody helping me with lactation was like in the hospital with like a nurse who like, like manhandled me and the baby like into place. And you can like, nurse is not always a woman, but in this case it was. But it’s like, you know, it’s like I like it is sometimes I think it’s a fascinating part of this that you have leaned, that you have found and created a network and a job in such a crazily girl dominated space.
Jacob Engelsman [00:20:42]:
So when I was, when I was working in the clinic, after about like six months, Christie was like, you should just get your certification. Because the certification to become a lactation consultant is not. It takes about three years. I think for most people there’s like 14 different college credits you need and then like 90 hours of lactation specific education, which there are different sources to go through. And then 500 clinical hours, which I didn’t realize at the time. For most people, the clinical hours are the hard part. I was already working in a clinic.
Amy Stone [00:21:22]:
But that’s a lot of hours. 500 clinical hours is, I mean, if you were to do, you know, if you were to do 40 hours of full time logging a week, that’s, that’s, I mean it’s a quarter, but probably. How long did it take you to rack all that up?
Jacob Engelsman [00:21:41]:
Couple years. And we would, you know, we’d go through parts where like I’d work there full time or I’d work there part time because I had another gig or, you know, but yeah, like, all told, I worked there for, for a couple of years. And, and then there’s a test that you take, which I, my cohort to take that test. They only do it twice a year. Was the first. It was, it was during lockdown.
Amy Stone [00:22:11]:
Okay.
Jacob Engelsman [00:22:11]:
And so we were the first people to take the test online because it used to like, you take There are specific testing sites.
Amy Stone [00:22:18]:
Sure.
Jacob Engelsman [00:22:19]:
So we were the first people to take it online. And that was a thing about lockdown, actually, which is like weirdly beneficial to the lactation community is we learned that a lot of lactation support can be done telehealth. Right. Like, unless there’s something specifically wrong with a parent’s like chest tissue or with the baby’s oral anatomy. Right? Yeah, then most. Yeah, then most lactation support can be telehealth. And before that, when I was doing my clinical hours, if a person couldn’t come into the clinic, we went to them. Like, telehealth was extremely rare until like one day we all figured it out.
Amy Stone [00:22:58]:
Which is, I mean, that is the overall, in my opinion, hidden blessing of lockdown that we did take these things. Because when you are, when you are lugging around a six day old baby trying to figure out if they’re, you know, actually, you know, if they’re actually eating, you know, from this system that is a project, nobody feels good. Nobody is having a good time in that trip. And so if somebody had offered to. Actually, that’s an interesting question. If somebody offered to do telehealth the first time, I was reaching out, I don’t know, because I needed them to, like, they, like, they needed to coach me through my confidence of like, this kid is, you know, we’re talking, you know, three ounces of, you know, I couldn’t tell the diapers were wet, nothing. I needed somebody to really bolster my confidence that the baby was not starving. And so I was happy to make the trip, but I’m happy for telehealth. It also, though, you know, when we, when I asked, did you do it in person or remotely? You know, being able to train people remotely really opened up education and connection from between and two what we now call marginalized groups. People who would have not participated if they had to come in person or they were out of town or whatever. So. But you did do this training in person and I give you a gold star because I just, I love the visual of my mind of you walking into the very first postpartum doula class. Like a room full of women, like, hi, my name’s Jacob and I want to be a doula. I think that would be great. Okay, so you go through this, you’re doing clinical hours. You’re also being a nanny. So this is like you are enmeshed in this family starting sort of period of people’s lives. You come into a. And the birth worker community in Atlanta. You eventually Come to a spot where you begin to specialize with a very unique group. That’s probably a very, not the best word to choose of people who need support in lactation. Tell us about how that came about.
Jacob Engelsman [00:25:08]:
Yeah, so when I was doing my lactation education, so like I said, you know, we need, we need 90 hours of lactation specific education. I got mine through an organization called Childbirth International. But then also, you know, like I was reading all these books for lactation consultants and, and there’s like two, two medical journals for lactation consultants, you know, so I’m, I’m getting like really into the nitty gritty of this field and it dawned on me that there’s all of this information that would be super, that’s super relevant and would be super helpful for queer and trans families. That is A, like not really being presented in a way, like for families, right? It’s all, it’s all in the stuff for lactation consultants, but B, like even in the books about lactation and childbirth, it’s not, it’s not for queer and trans families. It’s for every book is assuming that the person reading it is a CIS woman who just gave birth is right.
Amy Stone [00:26:28]:
I represent the, the standard person 100%.
Jacob Engelsman [00:26:34]:
Which, yeah, 99 of the time is true. But there’s still thousands of people, right, who for whom this information is super relevant and it’s either not being, it’s not accessible or it’s not being presented in a way that is appealing to these communities.
Amy Stone [00:26:56]:
100%. 100%. So, all right, so you discover that. So you, you, you are married to a man, so you are part of the queer community to start. But you discover you guys do not, you guys are not, you guys didn’t discover this through personal experience, something happening inside your house. You sort of came to this conclusion or awareness by reading the materials and just general knowled the world.
Jacob Engelsman [00:27:22]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like this, this is a, like there is a book that needs to exist that does not exist, right? Like this book that is lactation information written for trans guys and non binary people who are pregnant or want to be pregnant and have questions. Trans women and CIS women who want to induce lactation because their wife is giving birth. Like this is a book that should exist, that does not exist. But of course at this time I’m still like, I’m not even certified yet. I, so I’m like, this is a book that should exist, does not exist. And I have no business writing a book on lactation.
Amy Stone [00:28:13]:
So let’s that’s so funny. It’s like, so that somebody should write this book.
Jacob Engelsman [00:28:17]:
Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:28:17]:
It shouldn’t be me.
Jacob Engelsman [00:28:18]:
Five years. This book does not exist yet. I’m going to write it.
Amy Stone [00:28:24]:
Oh, very interesting. All right, so I’m going to. So this is when. When I read your description of what you did and your specialty, I was like, I totally want to have this conversation because. And I want to watch, because I was just. It’s something I’ve been reading about. It is like, a loose part of, like, inducing lactation. Well, let’s back up before you have kids. It, like, this whole lactation thing seems like it’s like, you know, ready, set, go. And it’s easy for everybody. And the reality is that for modern women who do not spend a lot of time around families and aunts and uncles, for many, many people who are going through the process. I shouldn’t have said women. I should have said people who are going through this process. It’s a daunting, unfamiliar sort of process to get the baby to eat, to make it work. I had a pretty easy experience overall, and I thought it was hard. I only know that mine was easy compared to the hardships that other people go through. And I start this whole, like, being like, yay, breastfeeding and lactation, but also just like, babies need to eat. Like, I’m really open about all of that sort of thing as a concept, but they do touch on the books that I read, there is this awareness that you. That lactation is not actually always directly attached to growing a human being inside your body. And like. But I’ve never met anybody or had the chance to talk to anybody who has actual experience. And it’s like a little paragraph in a book. That’s it.
Jacob Engelsman [00:29:55]:
Right.
Amy Stone [00:29:57]:
And so I want to talk. Let’s walk through the audience who’s like, what are you talking about, Amy? Like, what is the biology here? Right. So all human mammals are born with mammary glands, is my understanding.
Jacob Engelsman [00:30:09]:
Yes.
Amy Stone [00:30:09]:
Right. Like, we all have them. Then if you are a human who grows a new baby inside your body, a little newborn. The idea is that this process, the hormones usually kick off and you are able to feed the baby through lactation. Sometimes it’s more complicated than that. Doesn’t work for everybody. And that’s when lactation consultants come in. But sometimes people want to kick this off when they have not grown a baby in their body. And this is something that you have actually worked with people and you specialize with the queer community. But the other community that I’VE heard of that wants to do this sometimes is adoption when they’re adapting.
Jacob Engelsman [00:30:52]:
So many people I’ve talked to about, about inducing lactation are like, I wish I knew that was an option when I adopted my child, you know, how many years ago. Yeah, well, and that’s the thing that I don’t want to change the subject, but I do just want to mention this. Basically everything I talk about, like, in reference to queer and trans communities, I also applies to CIS communities. Right, right. Like most, most mastectomies are CIS women, not just trans guys having top surgery, you know.
Amy Stone [00:31:23]:
Right.
Jacob Engelsman [00:31:24]:
Like lots of CIS women are on hormone treatments.
Amy Stone [00:31:27]:
Yes. No. Everybody over the age of 50. Yes.
Jacob Engelsman [00:31:31]:
So, like. Right. And the. And women over the age of 50 can induce lactation if they really want to.
Amy Stone [00:31:38]:
So, yeah. So let’s. So there’s our. So this is your special. You do specialize with queer families. And let’s talk about. So the idea is that as someone who is a doula and a lactation consultant, you’re helping families and a community of people who are really marginalized is an excellent word for this because they’re outside the standard concept in the books and on the ads in Target for, you know, what newborn shopping looks like. And you’re helping them in. Give us some examples of when, when this, how this works.
Jacob Engelsman [00:32:20]:
So most of the time, when somebody wants to induce lactation, they. So most of the people that I’m talking to have a spouse who’s pregnant. Pregnant.
Amy Stone [00:32:35]:
Okay.
Jacob Engelsman [00:32:37]:
And so they know when the baby’s coming. Right.
Amy Stone [00:32:40]:
Okay.
Jacob Engelsman [00:32:41]:
Their partner just got pregnant. They. They have a due date and they want to induce lactation. So they can also, you know, take. Take part in that experience.
Amy Stone [00:32:53]:
So this is a family where you’d have two. They’re hoping that they’ll have two parents who are able to breastfeed.
Jacob Engelsman [00:32:58]:
Yes. Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:32:59]:
Okay. Wow. That would be helpful, actually. Yes. Having been in a house where only one person was able to breastfeed. Having someone to pass off to.
Jacob Engelsman [00:33:08]:
Yes, right. It does, it does mean that both parents will need to do some pumping. Right. In order to like, maintain a full supply. But yeah, there’s. There, there are pros and cons to it, but yeah, for some families, it’s. It’s really important that both parents share in this. And so in those cases, when you have a baby coming, when you know the date for the baby, or for example, if there’s like a surrogate or, or an open adoption, something.
Amy Stone [00:33:40]:
Oh, sure, a surrogate. Another opportunity. Yes.
Jacob Engelsman [00:33:43]:
Okay. Usually what parents will do is they will. Step one is to try to trick your body into thinking you’re pregnant. So usually that means taking birth control pills. Ok, Skipping the placebo week. And not for the entire time. Right. Usually just for like three or four months. And then, so you try to trick your body into thinking you’re pregnant and then, and then convince your body you have a hungry baby. Okay, so you take, you take birth control pills for three or four months and then stop taking them and immediately start pumping.
Amy Stone [00:34:28]:
And it’s the pumping that mimics what the baby would do.
Jacob Engelsman [00:34:31]:
Yes, pumping is the most important part. People, you know, because a lot of people want to do this, but they don’t want to, they don’t want to take any pills or you know, take any medications, which, which is fine. But yes, pumping is, is the most important part.
Amy Stone [00:34:55]:
Did I lose you.
Jacob Engelsman [00:35:07]:
By the pituitary gland? So I’ve had people say to me like, oh, I can’t, I can’t induce lactation because I had a hysterectomy. And I’m like, that is like, that is fully irrelevant to lactating. Like the presence of a uterus, the presence of ovaries does not matter at all in the context of lactation.
Amy Stone [00:35:33]:
I think for a lot of people who may never have thought about it or had like a late night conversation about it, that, that’s kind of a bombshell piece of information because I think that most people tie it directly to, to those organs.
Jacob Engelsman [00:35:53]:
Yeah, yeah. But no. And so with that in mind, trans women can also induce lactation in theory. CIS guy scan. You don’t hear about it a lot. Mostly just because I feel like there’s not a lot of overlap of like CIS guys who want to. But yeah, I always phrase it as in theory, CIS guys can.
Amy Stone [00:36:16]:
Yeah, I mean that’s the, the late night like theoretical conversation. You’ve had too many, you know, too many drinks and you’re talking about this with your friends, is that, you know, if a CIS man was in a forest and found a newborn like that, in theory, you, they could develop and feed the baby. I don’t know if there’s ever been a case of it, but, but yeah, like the biology is there. The mammary glands are present.
Jacob Engelsman [00:36:45]:
Yeah. And the, and the hormones are not present in, in like the required amounts. But yeah, like in, You know, like, like emergency situations, like you were saying.
Amy Stone [00:37:05]:
Yeah.
Jacob Engelsman [00:37:06]:
There’s always, there’s always that sort of possibility. And. Sorry, I’ve got it.
Amy Stone [00:37:11]:
You’ve got a siren. Yes.
Jacob Engelsman [00:37:15]:
And then with CIS guys who are interested because I’ve had a few contact me about, you know, they’re interested. I’m like, you’re absolutely gonna need to take hormones. Right. Like, and a lot of people too don’t realize that if you have ever lactated in the past, you’ll have an easier time of it.
Amy Stone [00:37:43]:
Well, so one of the things that I had never thought about until it was like, so is the like the old fashioned concept of like. So one of the things is, right back in the old days, like women would, like there were wet nurses and there were people like. So now we’re very particular that like, you know, there’s a relationship between the person who had the baby and feeds the baby. But I think in olden times, never lived there. Don’t actually know this to be true. But there were like wet nurses that were sort of lactating well past like, you know, because they didn’t have any formula or anything like that. So you were either gonna feed goat milk or, you know, water or. There was somebody who was. So people, I think were lactating for a lot longer time because it was kind of their job.
Jacob Engelsman [00:38:33]:
Yeah, yeah. Wet nurse, wet nurse was a. Yeah. Like a full on profession.
Amy Stone [00:38:39]:
Right. And my job is to feed babies.
Jacob Engelsman [00:38:42]:
Yeah. Like as long as you are continually, you know, latching a baby and removing milk, the body will continue to make.
Amy Stone [00:38:51]:
Milk as long as it’s.
Jacob Engelsman [00:38:53]:
Yeah, no, I mean, I want to say indefinitely, but like as a professional now I’m like, how long could, like, could you just do it for 20 years, but probably.
Amy Stone [00:39:03]:
Right. Like maybe. So let’s talk about some of the. So we talked about some of the. Because one, you wrote this book, so you. Five years go by.
Jacob Engelsman [00:39:11]:
Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:39:12]:
No, you’re doing all this certification, you told yourself, almost like that high school deal where it’s like, if none of us are married by the time we’re 30, we’ll marry each other. You were like five years. If this book still isn’t written, I’m going to write it. You do like five years go by and you’re like, shoot, nobody wrote it.
Jacob Engelsman [00:39:28]:
Now I have to write this book the whole time. I’m kind of like outlining it and, and writing articles for magazines, right? So like I’m getting some writing experience, right. Getting some writing chops and developing a little bit of a, a little bit of a name in, in certain circles. And then after, after I got certified, I, Yeah, I, you know, the book still. There’s been like one or two other books while I was Researching mine. And I honestly can’t even say if I learned about it before or after I got my book contract. But like a year or so before my book came out, another book called Feed the Baby by Victoria Fichelli came out and it covers a lot of the same information. But that being said, like, just because there’s one book on the subject, I didn’t feel the need to abandon this project. So. And I actually interviewed Victoria for my book. She’s a gem. And so, yeah, so while I was doing the research, I found a book called Supporting queer birth by A.J. silver. And I was like, okay, the people who publish this book are going to be the people who publish my book. Like, yes, this is, this is a one to one here. So yeah, so I sent my proposal out to Jessica Kingsley Publishers. And yeah, and the first people I sent my proposal to picked it up. Here’s the thing that I didn’t people, I realized people don’t know about writing a book is that if you want to publish a novel, you write a novel and then get it published. If you want to publish a non fiction book, you write a sample chapter so you don’t have to write the whole book. So yeah, so I had a good, I had a good sample chapter, you know, I had a good introduction, a good sample chapter, good outline, good solid table of contents idea, which of course by the time the book’s actually published, everything’s completely different. But good enough to get the book contract.
Amy Stone [00:41:53]:
Yeah.
Jacob Engelsman [00:41:54]:
And yeah, and I sent it to Jessica Kingsley. They were like, yes, absolutely, we want to, we want to publish this book.
Amy Stone [00:42:02]:
I mean, I think it’s a really amazing thing because there’s a lot of choices and decisions here that just sort of align. And it sounds to me as an outsider that, you know, you had some good timing and awareness to say, hey, this is a part of the human community that is not being served well enough to lean into it and do the research. And committed five years to wait to write a book and still be willing to do it. That’s a long time. We’ve talked a little bit about it, but I’d love to get you, give you a chance to talk about some examples of. And the people who, for some of the people who are in these groups will already know, but it’s important to name and claim like the people who can be supported by this book and by this project. Like not all families are heteronormative at all. So let’s go through like some of the people you mentioned. Trans, trans men Which I think your word, you call it trans dudes. Is that the way you describe it? I’m sorry, you say, how do you say trans men or trans, like, so I think you said.
Jacob Engelsman [00:43:12]:
Yeah, trans men in general. Trans men, non binary people. Yeah, yeah. So I think, I think there’s a lot of surprise in like. Cisgender heterosexual communities that trans guys do want to give birth like that, that there is any overlap between people who identify as trans men and people who want to give birth. But it is not as, as uncommon as, you know, some people. Some people probably suppose. And that being said, these guys, 10, you know, tend to have a lot of questions and concerns about lactation, which most people who are getting pregnant do have a lot of questions.
Amy Stone [00:44:04]:
I did, I did, yeah.
Jacob Engelsman [00:44:06]:
So, but also, you know, they a, they want to talk to somebody who is going to recognize them as a guy. And also, you know, there are very specific questions like when can. A lot of people are like, when can I start taking testosterone again? Because when you’re pregnant you have to stop taking testosterone. That’s, that is a point blank thing.
Amy Stone [00:44:34]:
Oh, see, I would never, I’ve never, I’ve like, it’s the thing. I’ve never even thought about it because it’s not.
Jacob Engelsman [00:44:39]:
Yeah, but yes, and, and there was a big assumption for a long time that testosterone was going to be antithetical to making milk, which it’s really not.
Amy Stone [00:44:49]:
Oh, interesting.
Jacob Engelsman [00:44:50]:
Okay. Yeah. This is kind of an interesting thing where so a, it was kind of assumed that testosterone would inhibit milk production, which sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. It seems to depend a lot on the person. But there was also an assumption that testosterone would get into the milk supply and be bad for the baby. Here’s the thing about that. And this is like these are, these are based on case studies where people have had the, the lab work done, like, done all the, the testing levels in the blood and the milk and everything. So here’s the deal. So testosterone gets injected, goes into the blood supply, testosterone level, some of it does get into the milk. However, when the baby eats that milk, testosterone is not absorbed well by the stomach, which is why, which is why they use injections to begin with. So when the baby gets that milk that does have a higher testosterone level, it does not lead to a higher testosterone level in the baby’s blood. The baby just poops that testosterone out.
Amy Stone [00:46:08]:
Oh, okay. So because the way people take testosterone, in most cases, intramuscular injection.
Jacob Engelsman [00:46:13]:
Yeah, yeah.
Amy Stone [00:46:15]:
And I didn’t even, I didn’t know that that was even because. Because it wasn’t digested. But that makes sense. I think it’s. So when you were writing the book, and we’ll wrap this up pretty soon, when you were writing the book, was there. Were you in a spot where you were able to find a lot of existing research, or was it a lot of interviews and talking to people who were figuring this out and working through it without writing, doing lab work and going public with it? Because they’re a small sample size.
Jacob Engelsman [00:46:56]:
A little bit of both. Most of the. Most of the research is. Is small sample groups or case studies. So I was doing. So I was doing a lot of research in the journals. And it’s funny, I actually said too, there’s actually three journals on human lactation. There’s. There’s Clinical Lactation, there’s the Journal of Human Lactation, and the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine also has a journal on human lactation.
Amy Stone [00:47:28]:
I’d love for that. Never knew. Okay.
Jacob Engelsman [00:47:30]:
Yeah, right. Parents. Yeah, right. Parents aren’t reading the Journal of Human Lactation.
Amy Stone [00:47:34]:
Was not. I read the. I had a very nervous new mom and I called my dad and I sent him to the bookstore to buy the Dr. Sears book on breastfeeding.
Jacob Engelsman [00:47:45]:
Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:47:46]:
And that’s, you know, that’s. That was my. Other than, you know what to expect when you’re expecting. And, you know, that was kind of it for me.
Jacob Engelsman [00:47:54]:
But then also. So I was at a. I was at a conference. I was at a lactation conference when I first started writing this book. And one of the presentations was on supporting trans women who are inducing lactation by the speaker named Brynna Hayden. And as I’m watching this, I’m like, oh, I need to interview for them for this book. Like, like, we need to. We need to collaborate on this chapter because, like, they know way more about this than I do. So.
Amy Stone [00:48:23]:
Yeah, so trans men, trans women. And I would think, like, so this is not anything I have experience with. You know, the first time you ask somebody, though, I mean, some. It can be a very personal conversation to talk to a doctor about anything, but it’s to open up the conversation and begin to think about family planning when you’re not sure how the person on the other side of the conversation is going to receive you as a human being or feel about the situation. Like, family planning in family planning is a complicated thing in anything. Right. In any kind of family. But in queer families and queer communities, I think it’s an extra layer of consideration, safety, and acceptance. And so. And I thought I Was wondering if that would fall over into the research on these topics. Like, you know, how are we going to do this? Who are we going to talk to about it? Who knows about it? How public do we go with this information?
Jacob Engelsman [00:49:23]:
Yeah, there’s, there’s a lot more of this research being published right now. But also there is, there is a bit of pushback from lactation communities because this has historically been such a very specifically, like, feminine space that, That now, like, other communities are, you know, also wanting to be a part of it because they are also lactating people. Yeah, they want, you know, they want to, they want to be in on this. And I think one of the things that’s important to, to stress in conversations like these is that, like, I’m not telling anybody to change their language about anything or to change the way they do anything, right. I’m asking people to, like, basically be nice. You know, like, if you don’t feel comfortable, if, if, if a lactation consultant doesn’t feel comfortable working with trans communities, like, that’s fine. Like, just know somebody who you can refer them to. Right? Like, that is such an important piece. That’s literally the bare minimum. Right? Just be like.
Amy Stone [00:50:44]:
And also, though, so important. It’s like, you know, you walk into a chicken restaurant and you don’t want to eat chicken. You’re like, hey, where can I find a hot dog stand? That’s like, really helpful. Really, really helpful. And on the other hand, what’s not helpful? And I used a goofy example because it is so ridiculous. Happens all the time in medical services where you’re like, hey, I have this problem. And the person on the other side is like, oh, yeah, that looks terrible. I don’t do that. And that’s the end of the conversation. And, and it’s back on you to do the research to figure out, you know, who can I find? So, you know, the fact that you are, you wrote this book, the fact that there are three books, the fact that you are helping people, that there’s the chance that somebody would walk into a room and be like, hey, this is what’s going on in my life. That somebody would be like, I know someone you can talk to.
Jacob Engelsman [00:51:36]:
Right. Well, because that’s the thing is if somebody contacts me with a lactation, you know, they have a lactation support question, and it’s because their baby has a cleft palate or something, right? Like, that is outside of my skill set, so I’m going to refer them to somebody else. It’s not because I think there’s anything wrong with babies with cleft palates, but it’s like, that is a specialty that I am not suited to care for.
Amy Stone [00:52:00]:
Yeah, that’s it. And that’s.
Jacob Engelsman [00:52:02]:
To this person, right?
Amy Stone [00:52:04]:
No, that’s. Yeah, no, absolutely. So tell us a little bit about. This has been a long project for you. You knew from your own experience that there were people who would benefit from this information or writing this book. Now, having published the book and it’s been out there in the world, why do you feel that this, this topic and this book and the work that you do as a lactation consultant for queer families in all of their different forms is important?
Jacob Engelsman [00:52:40]:
Why do I feel that it’s important? Because. Because we have historically just been like, an underserved population, and it’s not even sometimes. I mean, sometimes, yes, we’ve been in a population underserved intentionally by different groups, but in. In this field, in this scenario, like, it is just now coming to medical professionals attention. Right. Like, they’re like trans guys who want to give birth, like, were extremely rare. Like, I remember when I was younger, Thomas Beatty is like the first person who I think is legally considered a man who gave birth. And it was all over the news. Right. His memoir was like a bestseller.
Amy Stone [00:53:39]:
Yes, it’s very modern. Yeah.
Jacob Engelsman [00:53:41]:
Yes. So, yeah, like, it is kind of a new field. So. And I, I think that, Yeah, we can’t. We can’t let this, like, fall by the wayside, I guess.
Amy Stone [00:54:02]:
Yeah. I mean, I would agree with you. I bet you there are plenty of people who could take an opposite position. But I think that one of the great benefits of being alive in 2026, where information is at our fingertips and, you know, information zaps around the world very, very quickly, is that we can do, hopefully, as a community, as a humanity, a better job of creating pockets of information for very specific subspecialties. Yeah, I think that’s.
Jacob Engelsman [00:54:34]:
I think that’s. Yeah, I like pockets of information.
Amy Stone [00:54:37]:
Yeah. Because, I mean, this is, you know, this is something that you specialize with. I mean, do you. Do people reach out to you? Do people find you sort of from all over the world or just in Atlanta? Atlanta for nanny? Probably just in Atlanta, but.
Jacob Engelsman [00:54:48]:
Oh, yeah. No, for lactation support. I do. I almost exclusively do telehealth, because most of the people contacting me are. Are seeking information. Right. They are not people who have. Who currently have a hungry baby and are having. And if they are, then I usually help them find a local lactation consultant who’s going to be you know, accepting. But no, almost, almost everybody that I talk to as a lactation consultant is somebody who either wants to be pregnant and also feels like, you know, they want to have top surgery and they have questions about how to do that or they’re assist women or trans women and their wife is pregnant and they want to induce lactation. And then, and then with the inducing lactation, I used to do like follow up consultations every like couple of weeks. But then we realized that that is like largely unnecessary because once you get started with the pumping, like the follow up consultation is like, how’s it going? How much noise you making? You feeling all right? Like, it can, it can easily be an email.
Amy Stone [00:56:00]:
I can, I can totally see that. I can absolutely see that.
Jacob Engelsman [00:56:03]:
All right, so, so it became like consultations, like when you think that you actually might have a problem when it’s just a question of like you doing all right. Okay.
Amy Stone [00:56:14]:
No, that’s. And I think that, you know, people who are, this is, you know, a very, it’s a very personal thing, but it’s also very much in touch with your own body. And I think that the folks that are reaching out to you are very invested and aware of their own physical body and, and which is helpful for this. So in a second we’re going to wrap this up, but let’s tell people about the book and I will put link to the book on bookshop.org in the show notes wherever people are listening so they can find it there.
Jacob Engelsman [00:56:41]:
Thank you. Yeah, I just realized I haven’t actually said the name of my book yet.
Amy Stone [00:56:45]:
Yeah, let’s do it.
Jacob Engelsman [00:56:47]:
So it is Lactation for the Rest of Us, A guide for queer and Trans parents and helpers. It came out February 2025, so almost a year ago now from Jessica Kingsley Publishers I am currently working on. I’m thinking of it as like a follow up book called Baby Wrangling for the Rest of Us.
Amy Stone [00:57:11]:
Okay.
Jacob Engelsman [00:57:12]:
About like a book about infant care, but that’s written in kind of the same way as it’s not going to assume the gender or sexuality of the parents at all. I do not have a contract for that one yet. So if I have any publishers or agents in the, in the audience, please reach out 100.
Amy Stone [00:57:31]:
No, there are some, there are definitely some small imprint publishers who’ve been on the show who will be hearing this and all of those things. All right, so Lactation for the Rest of Us. I love this interview and I love this story. All right, are you ready for the wrap up questions? The Fun wrap up questions?
Jacob Engelsman [00:57:48]:
Yeah, absolutely.
Amy Stone [00:57:49]:
All right, let’s do it. What is one way that you find and make new friends or community in 2026? It’s brand new 2026. So you could think about 2025.
Jacob Engelsman [00:58:06]:
So my husband and I play a lot of. A lot of games. We’re big board game people. Big role playing game people.
Amy Stone [00:58:15]:
I was gonna. I was gonna see the follow up question. Is it. You mean Scrabble or do you mean.
Jacob Engelsman [00:58:19]:
Like more complicated Dungeons and Dragons people?
Amy Stone [00:58:24]:
Oh, very nice. I just watched with my college age kids the finale of Stranger Things. I hadn’t watched any of the. I didn’t realize it was based around a Dungeons and Dragons story.
Jacob Engelsman [00:58:34]:
We. I watched like the first two seasons of that and then, I don’t know, kind of petered out.
Amy Stone [00:58:42]:
Well, we might be the part. I didn’t watch any of it. We might be a little old you and I for it, to tell you the truth, but I did very much enjoy that. Winona Ryder is. Is one of the adults in the story. And so it’s. And it’s supposed to be happening in the 80s. So I was having in the hour and a half that I was watched like with my. With my kids, I was like having like nostalgia moments from like, you know, from, you know, Heather’s and all of the other fun things. So. So. Yeah, exactly. And what was the one where she was in the TV things? Is that Reality Bites? Is that the name of the movie or is that something else?
Jacob Engelsman [00:59:15]:
Reality Bites was a show.
Amy Stone [00:59:17]:
Reality Bites is a show. What was the one where she was. Or she wants to be in the videographer. She has like an existential crisis is like a new college graduation.
Jacob Engelsman [00:59:25]:
I do not know.
Amy Stone [00:59:26]:
Okay. All right. So that was. Anyway. That was that so very good. So gaming. Do you guys host game nights?
Jacob Engelsman [00:59:33]:
Yeah, we. And that’s. That’s another thing that we learned you can do online during lockdown.
Amy Stone [00:59:39]:
Oh, really?
Jacob Engelsman [00:59:40]:
Yeah, yeah, just zoom. We just zoom, zoom. What’s the word? Conferences.
Amy Stone [00:59:48]:
And I had no idea. Of course that would work if everybody has to have their own pieces. I tried to get my family to do for. They were like, what do you want for the holidays? I was like, I want. Want family, Katan. And they were like, no. Rejected. What?
Jacob Engelsman [01:00:00]:
No, that’s.
Amy Stone [01:00:00]:
No, they don’t. Yeah, I have like. I have an equal split. Like half the family likes to play games and the other family is like, it’s torture for them. So we don’t always do it. All right, do you read and. Or listen to Books. And if so, can you share the last book you read or listened to that you liked?
Jacob Engelsman [01:00:17]:
Yeah, so I’m a big. I’m a big reader. I listen to podcasts, I read books. But one of my little, like, things that I do on the side is I. I review horror novels for a website called Malevolent Dark. So I just read a book by. Hold on one second. She has two last names, so I want to make sure she’s in the right order. Okay. I just read a book by Gretchen Felker Martin, okay. Called Black Flame, about, like, haunted. It’s a. It’s about a movie that was made, like, pretty, like, right before World War II. And like, all of the copies of it were destroyed, but then this. This film restorer gets a copy and. And starts restoring it and like, you know, like, spooky horror novel stuff starts happening.
Amy Stone [01:01:36]:
Okay.
Jacob Engelsman [01:01:41]:
Yeah. So that would. I wildly oversimplified that plot. Wow.
Amy Stone [01:01:51]:
Well, let’s hope she’s happy for, like.
Jacob Engelsman [01:01:52]:
You know, she has two other novels out that are. That are equally great, Cuckoo and Manhunt. So, yeah, if you’re. If you’re a fan of. Of horror novels. Gretchen Felker Martin.
Amy Stone [01:02:03]:
So not exactly a horror, but I was having a conversation with one of my other kids because apparently there’s a remake of War of the World Worlds on TV with Ice Cube as a character. I heard about that, and so then I said. I said, well, that’s really interesting. I said, do you know the original story of the radio program War of the Worlds? And, you know, this conversation required a history lesson about radio programs. Pre TV for this. Very young clients. And then I like, read them the Wikipedia thing about how there were some people who would listen to the radio show who thought there were actual Martians coming to the. Which is a super funny thing that that could happen. But then again, you know, I fall for AI stuff all the time, so it could happen today.
Jacob Engelsman [01:02:44]:
Right? Yeah, that’s the thing. It’s like, oh, those unsophisticated people in the 30s. And it’s like, now, dude, like, you totally want to fall 100.
Amy Stone [01:02:55]:
I tell people all the time. I’m like, I think I’m very savvy, but I was obsessed with, like, the grandma. I thought she was feeding, like, it. She domesticated a bear and she was like, feeding the bear. And then somebody’s like, that, that’s fake. And I was like, what? And then I thought about it and I was like, of course it’s fake. Of course that’s fake. But I just really wanted it to be like a real thing. All right, last one. Are you a morning person or a night owl?
Jacob Engelsman [01:03:23]:
You know, I, I like the idea of being a night owl, but because I have to get up at like 6:00′, clock, 6:30 in the mornings, I’m kind of of forced into being a morning person.
Amy Stone [01:03:34]:
And is that because you get small, small clients who are early morning riders, risers for the families?
Jacob Engelsman [01:03:40]:
Yeah, yeah. I’ve got like a, you know, 45 minute or an hour commute and job starts at 8 and. Yeah, so I, yeah, like, spiritually I’m a night owl, but I’m forced into being a morning person.
Amy Stone [01:03:55]:
That’s right. So I’m, I’m very much a morning person. And I have no idea whether or not that’s because I just always would have been that way or because it was beaten to me by the rigor of like getting up early for years and years. I just have no idea. But it stuck. And that’s just. I’ve accepted it about myself and I’m like, that’s great. This is who I am.
Jacob Engelsman [01:04:14]:
I feel like if I could write full time, I would absolutely be up until 3am writing every.
Amy Stone [01:04:19]:
Yes, that is the, that is the Persona, the Persona of the writer, like, you know, writing off into the middle of the night. All right, that’s it. Jacob Engsman, thank you so much for being a wonderful guest today on the show.
Jacob Engelsman [01:04:34]:
Thank you so much for having me. This has been great.