About Ashley

Deep experience. Relationship-based care.​

 

I’m Ashley Renee Sayers, an IBCLC, full-spectrum doula, childbirth educator, and mom of six. For more than 18 years, I’ve supported families through pregnancy, birth, infant feeding, postpartum, and early childhood.

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My professional experience spans high-volume Baby-Friendly hospital care, outpatient and telehealth lactation practice, prenatal and postpartum education, NICU and preterm feeding, complex feeding concerns, pumping and milk production, bottle and combination feeding, painful feeding, and specialized support for families navigating cleft lip and palate.

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I’m also a recipient of the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee’s 2023 Native Knowledge Award. I’ve presented on lactation, Indigenous maternal-child health, cleft lip and palate feeding, and community-centered care, and I’ve spent years supporting the development of other lactation professionals.

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But credentials are only part of what shaped the way I care for families...

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I have been on the other side of care, too.

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Motherhood has taken me through beautiful seasons and deeply complicated ones.

 

Across my own pregnancies, births, and parenting journey, I have experienced teen motherhood, breastfeeding struggles, birth trauma, second-trimester pregnancy loss, an extended NICU stay with a premature baby, overdue pregnancies, neurodivergence, and seasons of parenting while being profoundly under-supported.

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I know what it feels like to be trying to make important decisions while exhausted, overwhelmed, grieving, or unsure whether anyone around you really understands what you need.

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I also grew up in foster care, and that experience shaped my understanding of family, safety, consistency, and what it means when reliable support is missing.

 

Those experiences do not make me an expert on someone else’s story. But, they do mean I rarely enter a room expecting pregnancy, birth, feeding, grief, or family life to fit neatly into a textbook.

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Bodies are complicated. Families are complicated. Systems are complicated.

Good care makes room for all of that.

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Why relationship matters to me...

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I believe families deserve care that is both skilled and human.

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You should be able to ask the question that feels embarrassing. You should be able to say that something is not working. You should be able to change your mind. You should be able to make feeding decisions based on your own body, baby, circumstances, values, and capacity.

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My role is not to make your choices for you. My role is to give you information, clinical support, practical options, and a relationship you can trust while you decide what works for your family.

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That may mean working together for one lactation visit, one childbirth education session, or one specific concern.

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It may also mean continuing care across pregnancy, birth, feeding, and postpartum so that you do not have to start over with someone new every time your needs change.

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The work I care most about
 

I love helping families through the moments that feel uncertain, complicated, or overwhelming.

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I love the practical work of figuring out feeding problems, preparing someone for birth, supporting a parent after a difficult delivery, helping someone pump for a premature baby, or making a care plan feel manageable instead of impossible.

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I also care deeply about mentorship.

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One of the many reasons I maintain independent practice is to create more opportunities for emerging lactation professionals, especially Indigenous learners, to gain meaningful clinical experience and mentorship. Access to skilled care and access to skilled training are interwoven. Communities need more lactation professionals from their own communities who are prepared, supported, and able to serve the families who need them.

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What you can expect from me...

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You can expect experienced, evidence-informed care without judgment.

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You can expect honesty when something is outside my role or when I believe another provider should be part of your care team.

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You can expect practical support, clear education, and respect for your goals.

 

And you can expect me to treat you like a whole person, not a diagnosis, a feeding method, a birth plan, or a chart.

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Whether you come to me during pregnancy, after birth, in the middle of a feeding crisis, or somewhere farther along the journey, you are welcome to enter care wherever you are.

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That is the kind of practice I maintain.

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Pregnancy. Birth. Lactation. Postpartum. Relationship-based care for the whole journey.