Dr. Lorelei Michels

Dr.Lorelei was the absolute savior of my breastfeeding relationship with my first daughter. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong and she gave me the education and tips to make it to a successful 14 months! I wouldn't have been able to do it without her!

I was really disappointed with this whole experience. Dr. Lorelei’s practice asked us to fill out nine forms, some with multiple pages and a lot of redundant questions, before we arrived. I dutifully took over an hour to do this, and sent these in via email before our appointment. Dr. Lorelei showed up an hour late to our session and clearly hadn’t read any of this, as she spent a lot of the time requesting the same exact information we had already provided (several times!) on paper all over again. Her bedside manner left a lot to be desired, though we might have caught her on a bad day - she came in sniffling and tired as if she had a cold or a sinus issue, which of course happens to the best of us at times. But in general I would describe her attitude as one of imperious boredom. She didn’t seem to listen to anything I said and kept interrupting me. She spoke in a tone of voice which implied that she was tired of repeating her breastfeeding advice over and over again (and no wonder, since most of what she told us is readily available from Dr. Google). She didn’t seem to take seriously our concerns about conflicting medical assessments of our daughter’s tongue-tie, which our ENT described as “mild” and Dr. Lorelei seemed to regard as a very serious matter in need of surgical correction. To her credit, she did not do a hard sell on the frenotomy, but said we could work around if we elected not to do it. We have elected not to do it (mainly due to the lack of research on its long-term efficacy), but we won’t be going back here, either. Of all doctors, a lactation specialist - who inevitably deals with exhausted and desperate parents - should be kind, empathetic and reassuring. Maybe she was just having an off day, but we found Dr. Lorelei to be none of these things. At this point, we have decided to continue our struggle with breastfeeding on our own. Despite the vast army of specialists which has arisen to medicalize and treat this (ironically) “natural” process, none of them seem to be able to help.

We were confused and exhausted from a constellation of nursing related symptoms with my son, which included nursing 20x/day at 3 months. Dr. Lorelei was able to nail down the exact source of the issue on our first visit. With the help of her knowledge, some PT games she gave us for our son's gag reflex, and a referral for osteopathic manipulation our issues were resolved within a week. And- she was covered by our CDPHP insurance. Cannot recommend highly enough.

Was helpful with my first, completely misdiagnosed my second child...which led to the end of nursing. My second never had a bottle until I walked into the office, and has been on nothing but since. She did not do her research when it came to symptoms of acid reflux, because she doesn't believe babies actually get reflux. As a result, my child suffered longer. She convinced me he had a cranial sacral issue, when the real problem with his arching was reflux. Furthermore, she prescribed many herbs one of which (Blessed Thistle) exacerbates reflux. Long story short, if your child is diagnosed with reflux, listen to the pediatrician. I fully believe that had she done her research, our breastfeeding relationship could have been saved. I wasted $200 on copayments for the exact opposite of what I was trying to get. Furthermore, my last appointment I was completely ignored as she had taken another client at the same time and spent most of her time with them.

Bedside manner isn’t great and I never really left feeling good about the visits. I may have gotten an extra month out of exclusively breastfeeding but not worth the money, travel, and anxiety.