How the Miskin Method® Was Built

For nearly 30 years, I’ve worked with breastfeeding mums and their babies, and one question has followed me through all of it: why can the same breastfeeding advice work beautifully for one mum and make absolutely no sense for another?

Different mums, different breasts, different births, different babies, different feeding goals — yet so much breastfeeding advice still tries to find one “right” way that should work for everyone.

In the beginning, I found the unusual and complicated breastfeeding challenges fascinating. Over the years I worked with mums and babies where medical conditions, birth experiences, injuries, anatomy or completely unexpected circumstances made feeding anything but straightforward. I loved trying to work out what was happening and why.

But eventually I realised something rather humbling: however complicated the case looked, I nearly always found myself coming back to the basics. And it made me wonder why we, as professionals, weren’t starting there.

For me, I think some of it was ego. It felt nice to be “clever” and good at solving complicated problems. It took me a while to realise that being clever wasn’t about finding the most complicated explanation. Often, it was about being really, really good at the basics.

The question that changed my work

I wanted to help as many mums as I could, so I started asking a different question: How do you build a flexible breastfeeding framework that helps a mum understand what is happening with her baby, her body and her feeding — and then work out what actually needs to change?

Not more breastfeeding tips. Not another set of rules. And not one “perfect latch” that every mum and baby is expected to recreate.

Something flexible enough to adapt to the individual mum and baby in front of me.

That question eventually became the Miskin Method®.

My father, Dr PJ Miskin, always told me, “Find and solve the root cause of the problem rather than treating the symptoms.” That became the philosophy underneath the Method.

Because sore nipples, constant feeding, a baby pulling on and off, very short feeds, very long feeds, low milk supply, poor weight gain or a baby who never seems satisfied are things we can see. They don’t necessarily tell us why they’re happening.

And if we jump straight from what we see to what we should do, we can pull the wrong lever.

So my starting point became less “What should we do?” and more “What are we actually seeing... and what might be driving it?”

From a book to a Method

Long before LATCHED AI existed, I tried to put everything I knew into a book.

Actually, I went slightly overboard.

I started writing something I called Lactology: The Science of Breastfeeding, wrote hundreds of thousands of words and created diagrams to explain the mechanics of feeding. When I was later approached by a publisher, that work became Breastfeeding Made Easy: Your Step-by-Step Guide Using the Miskin Method.

The book is now out of print, although mums still seem remarkably good at finding second-hand copies.

But writing it taught me something important. More information wasn't the answer.

A mum doesn't necessarily need another person telling her how breastfeeding is supposed to work. She needs help understanding what is happening with her breastfeeding.

That distinction shaped everything I built afterwards.

The Miskin Method® today

Over time, I developed the frameworks that now sit within the Miskin Method®, including MumBo™ and the 4 Pillars of Breastfeeding Mastery™.

MumBo™ helps us understand the individual mum, birth, medical history, baby and baby's oral cavity behind the breastfeeding experience. The 4 Pillars help us look at whether feeding is Comfortable, Efficient, Sustainable and Effective.

They give me a structured way to look at the whole picture rather than grabbing one symptom and trying to fix it in isolation.

And decades after I first started trying to create a flexible way of helping more mums, technology gave me a completely new possibility.

And then came LATCHED AI

For years, the most useful part of my work wasn't simply telling a mum what I knew. It was the conversation.

A mum would tell me what she was seeing. I'd ask another question. We'd notice something else. We'd work through the pattern until what had felt confusing started to make sense.

A book couldn't ask a question back.

AI can.

That realisation eventually led me to create LATCHED AI, an AI-led breastfeeding support system built around my clinical experience, the Miskin Method® and the frameworks I have developed over nearly three decades.

The technology is new. The thinking underneath it isn't.

And that brings us here.

Welcome to Latch on

Latch on is where I'm going to unpack the questions mums actually ask me: Why is my baby feeding constantly? Why does breastfeeding hurt when I've been told the latch looks fine? Is my baby getting enough milk? Why is my baby suddenly pulling off? Is a ten-minute feed brilliant or a problem?

But I'm not going to give you a random breastfeeding tip and send you on your way.

I'm going to help you understand what you might be looking at, what else could matter and why the answer may be different for you than it is for the mum sitting next to you.

Because after nearly 30 years of doing this, that's probably the biggest thing breastfeeding has taught me:

The basics matter. The patterns matter. And your breastfeeding has to work for you and your baby.

I’m Geraldine Miskin, breastfeeding specialist, originator of the Miskin Method®, MumBo™ and the 4 Pillars of Breastfeeding Mastery™, and creator of LATCHED AI. Welcome to Latch On. Now, let’s have a look at your breastfeeding.