Women We Love: Adrienne Uphoff

Adrienne Uphoff may no longer breastfeed her children, but she helps other women in our area with the struggles and blessings they face. As a lactation consultant, Uphoff, who is certified by the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners, makes home visits to clients through her business Skyline Lactation. She is starting a post-baccalaureate pre-medical year at the University of Virginia this summer and starting Sacred Mountain Midwifery School in West Virginia this spring. She will also be the staff lactation consultant and teach classes at the new birth center—The Birthing Place—opening on Pantops this spring.

“I’m very happy that the area will have increasing birth options: women need choices,” Uphoff says. “I have wanted a career supporting women for as long as I can remember, but I had no idea how much support women who are mothers really need.”

Uphoff, who has two children Maia, 10, and Tristan, 8, with her husband Jeff, was a breastfeeding mother for more than seven years.
“In those years, I became part of a community of women which is largely hidden,” she says. “Our culture isolates women when they need each other the most, and it took me months to find a community of women who were sharing some of the same struggles and triumphs I was and who didn’t seem to feel the need to correct my mothering. I found my community through La Leche League and I was inspired by the women there, especially a couple of the leaders who recruited me as a volunteer.”

Uphoff spends a lot of time volunteering for the La Leche Leauge of Charlottesville, a support group for nursing mothers. She spends one to two hours with her client and baby—or babies—at her home and time on continuing education, including conferences and reading.

“I’m also in school right now, taking science classes so I can apply to medical or nursing schools, and I will be spending weekends learning how to be a midwife, so I imagine I won’t have a ‘typical’ work day for some time,” she says.

Uphoff truly loves her work. “The best experience is any in which I help a mother realize how capable she really is. I love it when I can make a positive difference to a mother in terms of how her baby is feeding, but I also love just being able to be someone who listens and understands what she is experiencing as she makes this significant and sometimes very challenging transition into motherhood,” Uphoff notes.

One frustration she has is the lack of health insurance coverage for lactation support outside of an initial hospital stay. “I’m hoping that these companies and the government will support women better in the near future.”

Uphoff says she keeps herself humble by “volunteering for the cat service industry.” To keep herself sane she says: “Spudnuts! Seriously, though, I think that knitting is very underrated as a therapy.”

The best advice Uphoff received was while she expected her first child. “I worried about giving birth, breastfeeding and mothering in general and I was whining about needing more support during the birth,” she says. “My mother reminded me that I was the only one who could do it. And I had everything I needed already.”

Uphoff says her current co-leaders with the La Leche League “continue to inspire me with their energy and intelligence. My nurse-midwife, Leslie Steeves, and my daughter’s doctors, Heather Quillian and Vanessa Camperlengo, have set a beautiful example of the kind of healthcare professional I want to be: they’re such good listeners. I have absolutely been inspired by other mothers I have met along the way, and I have loved hearing their stories. They’re homeschoolers, doctors, midwives, friends and strangers.”

Uphoff says she’d love to meet anyone who wants to become a lactation consultant. “We are kindred spirits.”

8 Things You Might Not Know About Adrienne Uphoff…

1.  Who is your favorite author and why? Jane Austen. Her take on the world is still fresh and relevant. And she’s funny.

2.  Favorite thing about Charlottesville? It has always felt like home to me.

3.  What is your favorite hobby/pastime? Knitting. It seems so pointless, but I just can’t seem to stop.

4.  What is one of your hidden talents/skills? I can sing. People always seem surprised when they hear me, and I don’t sound terrible. I’m not sure I want to know what they were expecting. 

5.  What is your guilty pleasure? They are too numerous for me to pick just one, but my latest is probably “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” I find it hard to resist.

6.  What is your favorite movie and why? The movie I watch most often is “Pride and Prejudice.” My kids even love it. It just never gets old.

7.  Where did you grow up? I grew up in Savannah, Ga., and I love to visit. It has beautiful architecture and ecology, and the weather is lovely. I definitely miss it each winter.

8.  What is the greatest invention of your lifetime and why? I’m having a hard time thinking of a great invention without a significant down-side. But I’ll keep trying.

Photo of Adrienne and Maia by Keely Noffsinger Massie