2014 Speakers & Topics
Dr. Hazelbaker has been a therapist for over 30 years. She specializes in cross-disciplinary treatment and to that end has taken training in several modalities to best assist her clients. She is a certified Craniosacral Therapist, a Haller Method practitioner, a Lymph Drainage Therapy practitioner, a Pre and Perinatal Psychology Educator and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant in private practice. She has authored three books, several monographs and performed clinically relevant research. As an innovator, she invented the Hazelbaker™ FingerFeeder to address infant sucking problems.
Torticollis, an abnormal foreshortening of the fascia of the neck that causes a head tilt, presents unique challenges to breastfeeding. Unfortunately, the incidence of this formally rare condition is on the rise. Dr. Hazelbaker discusses the causes of the condition, explains the assessment process and presents multiple therapeutic strategies for resolving torticollis in infants. She uses video to show both the assessment and treatment process in action.
Learning Objectives:
The participant will be able to:
- Define torticollis.
- Discuss an assessment strategy.
- Discuss various treatment strategies.
Alyssa has been helping parents and babies with breastfeeding since 2002, first as a La Leche League Leader and since 2009 as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant.
Alyssa works in private practice serving clients worldwide, primarily through telehealth. She is the author of Breastfeeding Without Birthing: A Breastfeeding Guide for Mothers Through Adoption, Surrogacy, and Other Special Circumstances and a professional supplement to the book, The Breastfeeding Without Birthing Professional Pack online training.
Alyssa has authored articles for The Journal of Human Lactation: The Three Step Framework for Inducing Lactation and Successful Co-Lactation by a Queer Couple: A Case Study. She has also authored articles for La Leche League’s Leader Today and Breastfeeding Today magazines, and Adoptive Families magazine. She is an international speaker on the topics of inducing lactation, relactation, and other related topics. Alyssa is the proud mother of three breastfed children, two by birth and one by adoption. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
Breastfeeding is important for all mothers and babies, even when (and possibly especially when) the baby arrives from another mother’s womb. Increasingly, mothers through adoption, surrogacy, and foster care are interested in nursing their babies. By providing support and helpful information, lactation professionals can play a key role in breastfeeding success for these special dyads. Breastfeeding without birthing mothers may need help latching their babies and/or inducing lactation. Specific tools for latching and protocols for inducing lactation will be presented. Many of these mothers will also need support in supplementing their milk production. Adoptive, intended, and foster mothers can successfully nurse their babies with good support and by approaching breastfeeding based on their own individual values and circumstances.
Professor Amy Brown is based in the Department of Public Health, Policy and Social Sciences at Swansea University in the UK. With a background in psychology, she has spent the last thirteen years exploring psychological, cultural and societal influences upon infant feeding decisions in the first year. Her research seeks to understand how we can shift our perception of how babies are fed away from an individual mothering issue to a wider public health problem – with societal level solutions. Dr Brown has published over 60 papers exploring the barriers women face in feeding their baby during the first year. She is a mother to three human children and three book babies: Breastfeeding Uncovered: Who really decides how we feed our babies, Why starting solids matters, and The Positive Breastfeeding Book: Everything you need to feed your baby with confidence. She is a regular blogger, aiming to change the way we think about breastfeeding, mothering and caring for our babies.
Maternal characteristics such as self-efficacy, knowledge and confidence are known to enable women to breastfeed, but little is known about the influence of maternal trait personality on breastfeeding. A study was undertaken to explore associations between breastfeeding duration, maternal personality and maternal experiences of breastfeeding. Results showed that mothers who reported high levels of extraversion, emotional stability and conscientiousness were significantly more likely to initiate and continue breastfeeding for a longer duration. Mothers high in these traits reported breastfeeding experiences (e.g. greater levels of support, lower embarrassment) that are conducive to breastfeeding. Maternal personality may affect experience of breastfeeding and thus be a useful tool in antenatal support to recognize women who may need extra, directed support.
Caroline Kruger read notarial civil law at Groningen University (NL) and worked in Rotterdam (NL) for one of the biggest law firms of The Netherlands, practicing family law and estate planning for close to ten years. Then she started a family. Her own journey in breastfeeding led her to read up on breastfeeding a lot. She began the VBN training for peer-to-peer breastfeeding counseling and also volunteered at a local hospital. She went to Artevelde Hogeschool in Ghent (BEL) to follow lectures by Gonneke Veldhuizen-Staas (amongst others). She then assisted the start up of the only milk bank in The Netherlands (while still in Rotterdam). After the milk bank moved to Amsterdam, she started her private practice Nultien Borstvoeding.
Taleb introduces the concept of Antifragility in his 2012 book. This presentation applies this concept to breastfeeding, counseling and research.
Antifragile are systems that evolve and improve after crises instead of breaking. Breastfeeding has survived evolution and is therefor antifragile. What interferes with breastfeeding’s antifragility and makes it robust or less than robust: fragile (at a population level and at the level of N=1)
Christine Van Den Broecke-Schneider was born in Salzburg, Austria. She worked there mainly in the graphics and printing industry. During her first pregnancy she moved to Mechelen, Belgium where she still lives with her husband and her two children. Soon she came in contact with La Leche League in Brussels and in 1997 she became the first Dutch speaking La Leche League leader in Belgium-Flanders. Since 2001 she has been a member of the Belgium Federal Breastfeeding Committee. She is active in different national and local breastfeeding projects and the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative. She frequently writes articles for La Leche League publications and other publications. She also gives presentations about breastfeeding through various organizations, for midwives and other maternity care workers, and she is still an active La Leche League leader.
Breastfeeding rates in Belgium are among the lowest in Europe. Mothers usually return to work fulltime when the baby is only 3 month old. Family, daycare and society very often are not supportive to breastfeeding mothers. Over the last decade things are changing for the better. The rate for initiation of breastfeeding does not increase, but mothers nurse their babies much longer than they used to do 10 or 15 years ago. Nevertheless, the complex and changing structure of the federal Belgium state and the three different official languages of the country (Dutch, French and German) create additional challenges. For example, it is impossible to get national breastfeeding rates. The efforts of the Federal Breastfeeding Committee are usually bogged down in the jungle of regulations and laws of this little but very complex country.
Cynthia Good, MS Clinical Psychology, is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, Clinical Counselor, author, consultant, and internationally recognized speaker, and has served as an expert witness. She is the Director of LifeCircle Counseling and Consulting, LLC where she provides lactation-compatible mental health care focused on the perinatal time period. She is also a Certified Diversity Executive, is Certified in Acute Traumatic Stress Management and is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Midwifery at Bastyr University where she teaches counseling skills. Cynthia has a strong interest in the emerging field of lactational psychology. She brings the evidence and insights of psychology and lactation consulting to her presentations, providing information and teaching skills that are essential to understanding and effectively responding to the complex psychosocial realities of families living in diverse contexts. The focus of her presentations includes equity, diversity, and inclusion; infant feeding rhetoric; perinatal mental health; perinatal loss, grief, and trauma; counseling techniques; ethics; serving as an expert witness in lactation-related court cases; cultural competence and humility; vitamin D; and more.
Topic: Unpacking the Invisible Diaper Bag of White Privilege: An Overview of Racial Inequities in Breastfeeding Support - [View Abstract]
Up to one third of mothers report experiencing birth trauma and postpartum symptoms of traumatic stress. Birth is traumatic when mothers experience or perceive a threat to life, serious injury, or threat to physical integrity (for themselves or their baby) or experience the death of their baby. Pre-existing risk factors and birth-related risk factors for traumatic birth are staggeringly common. Childbirth trauma and postpartum traumatic stress negatively impacts mothers and their babies, and can result in the undermining of breastfeeding, additional grief over the loss of breastfeeding, and increased health risks for mother and baby. This session offers a sensitive discussion of how traumatic birth experiences affect maternal mental health, mothering, breastfeeding, and lactation consulting. It includes the importance of recognizing the difference between postpartum depression and postpartum stress disorders in new mothers, screening mothers for traumatic stress, and referring potentially traumatized mothers for diagnosis and possible treatment.
White lactation specialists and white-dominated breastfeeding institutions in the US and other societies are vulnerable to manifesting racial bias—even unintentionally—due to their unseen and unearned white privilege and power. Antiracism work is an inherent part of avoiding bias and developing cultural competence, an ethical obligation of many lactation specialists and an inherent part of fulfilling institutional missions to serve mothers without discrimination. This session 1) provides an overview of the impact upon breastfeeding of racial inequities in health status, birth experience, maternal and infant perinatal outcomes, health care, employment, education, housing, and access to effective breastfeeding support and information that result from individual, institutional, and systemic racism, 2) helps participants understand how white privilege and power create racial inequities in breastfeeding support, and 3) invites participants to recognize and embrace their individual and collective responsibility to help dismantle institutional racism in the field of breastfeeding support.
Dianne is an IBCLC, podcaster, author, lactation education manager and has been working with families since 2008. In 2010, Dianne completed her Advanced Lactation Certification and BS In Maternal Child Health/Lactation. In 2013, she completed her MA in Health and Wellness/Lactation. Dianne has worked with thousands of families throughout the years in all areas of their breast/chest feeding journey. Dianne’s skillset has been informed by her broad experiences in WIC, in a hospital setting, in a busy pediatric office, a primary care office, telehealth, and private practice. From the prenatal period through weaning (whenever that may be), she has been a valued source of support and knowledge for families worldwide. Dianne teaches using her real-life experiences and case studies, which sets her apart in the lactation field providing a personalized and realistic experience for her audiences. Dianne’s evolution began as a clinical, patient-centered lactation consultant to a public speaker and educator, where she really shines. Her energy is contagious, and is felt by families, lactation consultants and birth workers alike.
Topic: Epidural Anesthesia and its Impact on Breastfeeding Initiation and Duration - [View Abstract]
The American Academy of Pediatrics, along with Healthy People 2020 and the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative has all identified the fascinating benefits associated with breastfeeding for both mother and baby, but there are still some strong barriers to breastfeeding. Research and case studies have associated how child sexual abuse, intimate partner violence and birth trauma suffered by the mother and baby can interfere with breastfeeding. Impact from this type of trauma can intensify during pregnancy and lead to breastfeeding difficulties. Increased medical intervention during labor and delivery has led to an upsurge of birth trauma, which can delay or reduce initial breastfeeding. This presentation identifies how trauma, either endured by mother, baby, or both, can lead to failure to initiate breastfeeding, latch issues, milk supply problems, painful feeds and early cessation of breastfeeding. This presentation will help the provider to detect the subtle signs of trauma.
Epidural use during labor has been increasing over the last several years. Along with the increase in epidural use, we have also seen an increase in cesarean deliveries, breastfeeding issues, and a decrease in breastfeeding duration. Increasing breastfeeding support to women who desire a medicated delivery may help to increase breastfeeding rates overall. This presentation will help the provider to become more aware of the possible negative effects that may prevail when epidural use during labor and delivery is promoted as safe for both mother and baby. Women should have the opportunity to make an informed decision about their medical care. It is the responsibility of providers who are working with new mothers and babies to recognize when breastfeeding is affected by medical intervention and are able to offer proper support.
Dr. Frank J. Nice has practiced as a consultant, lecturer, and author on medications and breastfeeding for over 40 years. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Pharmacy, a Masters Degree in Pharmacy Administration, Master’s and Doctorate Degrees in Public Administration, and Certification in Public Health Pharmacy. He retired after 43 years of government service, including 30 years of distinguished service with the US Public Health Service. He currently is self-employed as a consultant and President, Nice Breastfeeding LLC.
Dr. Nice has published Nonprescription Drugs for the Breastfeeding Mother, The Galactogogue Recipe Book, and Recreational Drugs and Drugs Used To Treat Addicted Mothers: Impact on Pregnancy and Breastfeeding. Dr. Nice has also authored over four dozen peer-reviewed articles on the use of prescription medications, recreational drugs, Over-the-Counter (OTC) products, and herbals during breastfeeding. He has organized and participated in over 50 medical missions to the country of Haiti.
Domperidone currently is used worldwide as an anti-nausea agent for adults, children, and women. It is currently available in 60 countries including Canada and Mexico. Domperidone was recently given orphan drug designation for the treatment of hypoprolactinemia in breastfeeding. Over 60,000 cases of hypoprolactinemia are reported annual in the United States. Infants who do not receive human milk cost the healthcare system over $13 billion each year and result in over 900 unnecessary infant deaths annually. Domperidone can produce significant increases in prolactin with subsequent increases in milk production. No drug is currently approved for the condition of hypoprolactinemia of lactation in any country.
This presentation will describe and explain the Orphan Drug Act and the steps necessary for domperidone to receive approval under the Act. Prolactin facts will be discussed as well as a review of the rare disease, hypoprolactinemia. The scientific rationale for the use of domperidone will be covered. Practical information will be presented on domperidone dosing and withdrawal of the drug with sufficient milk supply and with insufficient milk supply.
Helene Johns has a clinical midwifery background and a keen interest in women's experience of birth and early parenting. She is a volunteer counsellor with the Australian Breastfeeding Association. Working as a Maternal and Child Health Nurse in Melbourne and as a Midwife in Well Women’s Services at the Royal Women’s Hospital, Melbourne, she is involved in the provision of advocacy, advice, support and referral in both roles, in the latter through the state-wide Women’s Health Information Centre. Helene’s clinical roles involve the provision of Pap tests and sexual health screening for well women and De-Infibulation for women who have experienced female circumcision. Helene has a particular interest in breastfeeding influences and outcomes which has led to her involvement in the Mothers and Infants Lactation Cohort (MILC) study. She is a PhD candidate at The Judith Lumley Centre (formerly Mother and Child Health Research), La Trobe University.
During the MILC study we recruited 1003 postpartum mothers of term healthy infants who intended to breastfeed to explore the prevalence and outcomes of breast milk expression, and whether feeding other than directly from the breast prior to hospital discharge decreased the proportion of these infants receiving any breast milk at six months. Data were collected between June 2009 and November 2011, at recruitment 24-48 hours after birth and by telephone interview at three and six months postpartum. At recruitment, 48% of infants had been fully breastfeeding at the breast, 47% had received at least some expressed breast milk. Only 36% of primiparas had been fully feeding at the breast. At six months, infants who had fed only at the breast at recruitment were more likely fed breast milk (76% vs. 59%; OR 1.8, 95% CI 1.27, 2.46; adjusted for parity, type of birth, breastfeeding intention, perceived breastfeeding problems at recruitment and education).
Inma Mellado is an IBCLC in private practice in Madrid, Spain. She is a Computer Engineer and holds a Master degree on Pediatric Nutrition. She is also a La Leche League leader since 2005. She is mother of two beautiful children who came to change her life and brought the passion for breastfeeding. She is the lucky wife of a man who loves and supports her in all her projects.
The first barrier that IBCLCs may encounter in their career is how to make this profession recognized in their country. Whether you are a private practice consultant or a health professional working in a hospital, it is difficult to give the IBCLC certification the recognition and respect it deserves. I will explain how to face this kind of situation and how to get benefit from new technologies and social media.
Jamie is a speech-language pathologist who became interested in breastfeeding early in her career. She was an accredited volunteer breastfeeding supporter from 1998-2008, and has been an IBCLC since 2004. She is an assistant professor at Illinois State University, where she teaches courses in pediatric feeding disorders, among other topics.
Breastfeeding plays a role in neurodevelopment, and healthy neurodevelopment lays a critical foundation for fluent speech. This study was driven by the hypothesis that breastfeeding might protect against persistent stuttering. In our sample of 47 children with developmental stuttering, longer breastfeeding duration was significantly associated with reduced odds of persistent stuttering.
Jaye started her career in lactation in 1995 becoming a Certified Lactation Educator (CLE) through Lactation Institute and then became an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) in 2000. Jaye specializes in LGBTQ Issues as they relate to lactation, parenting, cultural acceptance and gender neutral language. As part of the LGBTQ community herself, she has personal and professional experience with LGBTQ issues which lends her a unique perspective and insight to the LGBTQ world.
This presentation will help practitioners learn about the culture of same-sex couples as it relates to lactation. Just as we know we need to be aware of other cultures within our communities and lactation customs in order to serve them better and be sensitive to their nuances, we need to recognize that the LGBT community has its own culture as well. Understanding that culture will help us be more attentive and supportive of our same-sex couples. Same –sex couples face any number of challenges in society in general and can find it difficult to find supportive and accepting lactation care. Knowing the nature of your own community and the acceptance level of the LGBTQ population can help you be more effective, accessible and supportive as a care-provider.
Karleen Gribble (BRurSc, PhD) is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Western Sydney University.
Her interests include infant and young child feeding in emergencies, marketing of breastmilk substitutes, parenting and care of maltreated children, child-caregiver and caregiver-child attachment, adoption reform, and treatment of infants and young children within the child protection, immigration detention, and criminal justice systems.
She has published research on these subjects in peer-reviewed journals, provided media commentary, contributed to government enquiries, provided expert opinion for courts, and engaged in training of health professionals, social workers, and humanitarian workers on these subjects.
Karleen is an Australian Breastfeeding Association Community Educator and Breastfeeding Counsellor. Since 2010 she has been a member of the Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies Core Group and has been at the forefront of the development of policy, training and research in the area of infant and young child feeding in emergencies.
The advent of Internet forums that facilitate peer-to-peer human milk sharing has resulted in health authorities stating that sharing human milk is dangerous. There are risks associated with all forms of infant feeding, including breastfeeding and the use of manufactured infant formulas. Part one of this presentation will compare the risks of milk sharing with the risks of using infant formula and include suggestions for risk mitigation. The facilitation of peer-to-peer milk sharing via the Internet has proven challenging to many health professionals and organizations. Biomedical ethics can be used to explore medical dilemmas and find reasoned, consistent, and defensible solutions to moral problems. The principles of biomedical ethics--autonomy, veracity, beneficence, nonmaleficence, confidentiality, and justice--are applied to peer-to-peer milk sharing in the second part of this presentation. Application of these principles provides guidance to assist health workers to act ethically in their interactions with mothers and others around the peer sharing of milk
Dr. Bhagat is a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist practicing at Kandivli, a western Suburb of Mumbai. He has been running Grace Maternity and Nursing Home, a Baby Friendly Maternity Service, for the past 22 years. Hon. Asst. (Obst & Gyn )at Akurli Road Municipal Maternity Home since June 1994 and Borivli Municipal Maternity Home from 1996 till 2010.
Dr. Bhagat is also a founding member and currently the Past-President of The Association of Fellow Gynaecologists, an organization representing practicing Gynaecologists from the suburbs of Mumbai. He has given many lectures, conducted workshops all over the country and contributed chapters to a number of publications on Optimising Labour and Delivery for Safe Motherhood, Caesarean Section: the Misgav Ladach technique, Active Management of the 3rd stage of labour, Post Partum Haemorrhage, Medical Disorders in Pregnancy, Breastfeeding; Breast Crawl and Neonatal Resuscitation.
Dr. Gangal is a Practicing Pediatrician in Mumbai for last 25 years. He has also been Mother Support & Training Coordinator of BPNI Maharashtra since 1995, Co-Coordinator of Mother Support Task Force of WABA since 2003 & Lactation Consultant since 2009.
Dr. Gangal was trained in lactation management by Dr. Felicity Savage and has been a breastfeeding trainer and advocate for over 2 decades. He was instrumental in establishing the first Mother Support Group in India (1995) and played a key role in training 500 Traditional Massage Women in Mumbai , Breast crawl rejuvenation (video, dossier and website), training thousands of Government health care providers in 5 Indian States with an innovatively written module in collaboration with UNICEF and organizing IBLCE exam for the first time in India (2009). He made significant contributions to LLLI publication ‘Hirkani’s Daughters’
Dr. Gangal has multiple publications to his credit and was a speaker at LLLI conferences in San Francisco and Chicago. He was honored with Lifetime Achievement Award by Mumbai Breastfeeding Promotion Committee in 2008 and WABA Secretariat award in 2010.
The phenomenon of Breast Crawl is unique due to multitude of Neuro-Endocrine components in the baby and the synchronized Neuro-Endocrine platform provided by the mother. The scientific details will help the Health Care Providers to understand the reasoning behind dos and don’ts for successful implementation of Breast Crawl. Addressing the obstacles to initiate breastfeeding by Breast Crawl in any maternity set up is a challenge for administrators as well public health experts. It is time that WHO and UNICEF declare Breast Crawl as the universally recommended method to initiate breastfeeding because that is exactly the process described in revised BFHI documents. Breast Crawl phenomenon is also a rich fertile ground for many research avenues like breastfeeding success, neuro-motor development, neonatal mortality, bonding etc. The entire spectrum from initiation with Breast Crawl and Baby Led Attachment to KMC in pre-term as well as full term newborns is worth exploring.
Kimberly Seals Allers is an award-winning journalist, author and a nationally recognized commentator, consultant and advocate for breastfeeding and infant health. A former writer at FORTUNE and senior editor at Essence magazine, Kimberly’s thoughtful and provocative online commentaries on motherhood and infant health and the intersection of race, class and culture, received over 10 million page views last year.
In addition, Kimberly specializes in issues related to African American motherhood and breastfeeding. In March 2012, she launched Black Breastfeeding 360°, a first of its-kind online multi-media content library on the black breastfeeding experience. She is author of The Mocha Manual to a Fabulous Pregnancy (Amistad/HarperCollins) a hip and informative African American pregnancy guidebook and two other Mocha Manual™ books in the series. She is the founder of MochaManual.com, a pregnancy and parenting destination and blog for African Americans and former editorial director of The Black Maternal Health Project of Women’s eNews.
Kimberly is a graduate of New York University and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. A divorced mother of two, she lives in Queens, New York City, with her children and two turtles.
You have a voice. Amplify it! Mothers need education and support beyond the hospital setting.
Today’s advocacy landscape involves engaging with mothers and families across a variety of channels. This may seem daunting for any individual or organization to manage on their own, considering the limited resources, the volume of competing conversations and the myriad of engagement channels out there. How can the breastfeeding movement effectively communicate critical messaging, easily build “brand advocates” and use media, social media and other avenues to amplify our voice across the social networks?
This advocacy training presentation will explore six key steps to hone advocacy skills for amplifying breastfeeding messaging and outreach across communities. It will explore the fundamentals of powerful advocacy from creating compelling narratives to building a foundation of understanding. It will illustrate the role of media, the legislative process and community organizing. Attendees will be able to understand the power of storytelling and describe simple ways to increase the relevancy of their message and make sure the message is being received. It will improve cultural competency in speaking to various communities and attendees will have an interactive opportunity for role play and to being creating a personal or organizational strategic advocacy plan.
Lara Audelo is the mom of two young boys, who is passionate about raising awareness for breastfeeding and supporting mothers and babies in meeting their breastfeeding goals. She believes increased education for all is key to supporting moms, and that online breastfeeding support is fast becoming a critical tool for helping mothers achieve their infant feeding goals. A breastfeeding mom for over 7 years, she received her Certified Lactation Education Counselor (CLEC)Credential from University of California, San Diego.
For almost 20 years women have been offering breastfeeding help to one another in an online capacity. In this time, the technological tools at our disposal have changed rapidly and now there are more ways than ever before to seek valuable support. It is essential for all who provide support for nursing moms to know that today's mothers, the Generation X and Millennial moms, are online and comfortable seeking answers to their health related concerns in these arenas. Knowing how and where to reach mothers, can help today's lactation professionals better serve the mothers who come to them for support, by offering them reliable, evidence-based information in ways that they are comfortable with accessing.
Laurel Wilson, BS, IBCLC, CCCE, CLE, CLD, CPPFE, CPPI owns MotherJourney in Morrison, Colorado. She has her degree in Maternal and Child Health – Lactation Consulting. With twenty-five years of experience working with Parents in the childbearing year and perinatal professionals, Laurel takes a creative approach to working with the pregnant family. She is a co-author of best-selling books, The Greatest Pregnancy Ever: The Keys to the MotherBaby Bond and The Attachment Pregnancy: The Ultimate Guide to Bonding with Your Baby. She currently spends a great deal of her time working with hospitals seeking BabyFriendly Status as a consultant and educator. She strives to provide the latest techniques, research and programs to her clients. Laurel is a board certified as a lactation consultant, childbirth educator, labor doula, lactation educator, Prenatal ParentingTM Instructor, and Pre and Postpartum fitness educator. She served as the CAPPA Executive Director of Lactation Programs for 16 years and trained Childbirth Educators and Lactation Educators for CAPPA certification. She is on the Board of Directors for the United States Breastfeeding Committee, a Senior Advisor for CAPPA, and also on the Advisory Board for InJoy Health. Laurel has been joyfully married to her husband for more than 25 years and has two amazing sons, whose difficult births led her on a path towards helping emerging families create positive experiences. She believes that the journey towards and into parenthood is a life changing rite of passage that should be deeply honored and celebrated.
Topic: The Milk Sharing Conundrum - The Grey Area Between Scope and Need - [View Abstract]
Recent research on epigentics has led medical professionals to query about how the environment impacts the developing baby both in utero and throughout its lifetime. The genome is the genetic information inherited from one's parents, but the epigenome is what determine how the genome is expressed. This deciphering process is effected by both the internal and external environment of an individual, including nutrition. Researchers are discovering that these epigenetic changes can influence not only one but multiple generations. The first nutrition for a human outside the womb is breastmilk, and thus the epigenetic impact of breastfeeding has long reaching potential. Discover the results of some of the latest research in the field of epigenetics and breastmilk - milksharing/wet nursing, breastmilk and epigenetic influence, and changes in gene expression and gut flora.
All human babies have the right to breastmilk exclusivity. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways - breastfeeding, expressed breastmilk via a feeding device, or pasteurized donor human milk. Recently there has been much attention placed on the traditional, though professionally frowned upon, practice of informal milk peer to peer milk sharing. The increasing popularity of milk sharing via social media, the growing attention on the importance of breastmilk exclusivity, the increasing awareness of potential dangers of artificial milk, and the inability for donor milk banks to provide donor milk for more than those in critical need has led professionals and families to an impass. Even though some professionals have warned against the practice, its use is becoming more widespread. Finding policy and recommended practices can be difficult. This presentation reviews the current challenges and realities of milk sharing while helping professionals provide best practice recommendations.
I am a board-certified general pediatrician and board certified lactation consultant. I have practiced general pediatrics and newborn medicine for 12 years. I have practiced breastfeeding medicine for 4 years. I teach medical students and residents in my office practice and in the hospital setting for newborn nursery. I am the medical director for the newborn nursery at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, AZ which has about 4000 deliveries per year. I am the chair person for our hospital-wide breastfeeding committee and utilize the American Academy of Pediatrics Residency Curriculum for breastfeeding. I founded and coordinate the Dr. MILK support program for physician mothers that are breastfeeding.
Dr. MILK ® (Mothers Interested in Lactation Knowledge) is an online and in-person support network to help physician mothers achieve their personal breastfeeding goals. Physician mothers have been defined as a high-risk breastfeeding group because of their unique barriers to achieving breastfeeding goals in addition to the common barriers shared with all work-outside-the-home mothers. When a physician mother reaches her breastfeeding goals, she is more likely to hold positive knowledge and attitudes towards breastfeeding in her medical practice. Until there is universal physician education in breastfeeding competencies, achieving personal breastfeeding success in physician mothers remains a critical strategy to impact thousands of mother-baby dyads that she will encounter over the course of her career.
Associate Professor Lisa Amir, MBBS MMed PhD IBCLC FABM FILCA, is a general practitioner and lactation consultant. She has been continually certified as an IBCLC since 1989. She works in breastfeeding medicine at The Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne and in private practice. She is a Principal Research Fellow at the Judith Lumley Centre (formerly known as Mother & Child Health Research), La Trobe University, Australia. She is the author of over 60 peer-reviewed articles, and the primary author of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine’s clinical protocol on mastitis. She is the Editor-in-Chief of International Breastfeeding Journal.
For over 20 years, Dr Lisa Amir has been seeing breastfeeding women with nipple and breast pain and infections. As a medical student she was taught that most clinical diagnoses are made by taking a careful history. Allowing the patient to tell their own story, while asking pertinent questions, usually reveals the likely cause of the problem. Careful physical examination, and occasional use of investigations, confirm the diagnosis. Using case studies from her breastfeeding medicine practice, Lisa demonstrates how to ask the right questions to correctly diagnose and treat nipple and breast problems. She will present case studies including mastitis, recurrent mastitis, breast abscess, and nipple and breast candida infection, and also discuss rare and unusual causes of nipple and breast pain and infection.
Lisa Marasco has been working with breastfeeding mothers for 35 years and has been Internationally Board Certified since 1993. She holds a Master’s degree in Human Development with specialization in Lactation Consulting and was designated a Fellow of ILCA in 2009.
Lisa is co-author of Making More Milk: The Breastfeeding Guide to Increasing Your Milk Production, a contributing author to the Core Curriculum for Interdisciplinary Lactation Care, and a Cochrane Collaborative author. She is employed by WIC of Santa Barbara County while she continues to research, write and speak. In addition, Lisa is affiliated with La Leche League of So. Calif/Nevada, and serves on the Breastfeeding Coalition of Santa Barbara County.
Prolactin is considered to be a key hormone for lactation, yet our knowledge has been surprisingly sparse. It is necessary for pubertal and pregnancy mammary development as well as milk synthesis. While prolactin level does not correlate directly to milk production, lactation fails without it. This talk will take a closer look at current research and what we do and do not yet understand about prolactin. We will then examine specific cases and discuss the process of elimination as well as possible strategies for affected mothers.
A past speaker at GOLD, Marianne Vanderveen-Kolkena IBCLC, a lactation consultant in private practice in the Netherlands, was a breastfeeding counselor for many years. She has been involved with the Dutch breastfeeding association (VBN) since 1994 and is a co-worker of the biggest Dutch breastfeeding website, www.borstvoeding.com. Marianne’s work is currently focused on secure attachment between babies and their parents and on parental autonomy, which led to her active involvement in preventing the implementation of a national guideline promoting letting babies cry it out. She has also been part of the ILCA Multi-lingual Committee and the Ethics and International Code Committee for two years. In 2011 she published the Dutch translation of Jim McKenna’s ‘Sleeping With Your Baby’. Early 2012 she published the Dutch translation of ‘If My Mom Were a Platypus’ by Dia L. Michels and April 2013 the Dutch translation of ‘Hold Your Prem’ by Jill and Nils Bergman. She actively blogs for her own practice and will start studying Anthropology in September 2014.
Marianne has been married for 29 years and is the mother of four breastfed daughters, aged 18 – 24.
It is abundantly clear by now that breastfeeding is the biological norm for mammals and therefore also for human babies. What is not so well known yet, is the fact that everything that happens in the first few years of life, has a big impact on psychological, social and emotional well-being once that baby is an adult. Research in the field of neurology, brain development and epigenetics, combined with all the insights from early and more recent attachment theory shows that despite brain plasticity, the way primary needs are (not) fulfilled, has a long-lasting impact. Experiences are stored in the primal, non-verbal brain areas as emotions and can easily be triggered in the future. Appropriate coping strategies that babies apply to survive can turn into malfunctional defense mechanisms that seriously hinder personal development and social proficiency. To understand what drives adults in their role as parents and in their choices around birth, breastfeeding and raising children, we need to grasp what they needed as babies. To comprehend what babies need to lay a strong foundation for the rest of their lives, we need to get a thorough notion of how the brain works and how hormones influence physiology.
Marsha is a registered nurse and international board certified lactation consultant. She has been assisting breastfeeding families in hospital, clinic, and home settings since 1976. Marsha is the executive director of the National Alliance for Breastfeeding Advocacy: Research, Education, and Legal Branch (NABA REAL). As such, she advocates for breastfeeding at the state and federal levels. She served as a vice president of the International Lactation Consultant Association (ILCA) from 1990-1994 and in 1999 as president of ILCA. She is a board member of the Massachusetts Breastfeeding Coalition, the US Lactation Consultant Association, and Baby Friendly USA, USLCA’s representative to the USDA’s Breastfeeding Promotion Consortium, and NABA REAL’s representative to the US Breastfeeding Committee. Marsha is an international speaker, and an author of numerous publications including ones on the hazards of infant formula use, Code issues in the US, and Breastfeeding Management for the Clinician: Using the Evidence.
Sore nipples are the bane of breastfeeding mothers. Nipple pain and/or damage is one of the top reasons for the early abandonment of breastfeeding. There are a large number of suggested remedies, many of which have little or no high quality evidence to recommend their use. This presentation will explore the structure of the nipple, potential screening tools for sore nipples, contributors to sore nipples, antenatal interventions, flat and inverted nipples, colonization and infection of the nipples, biofilms, small colony variants of Staphylococci aureus, and a plethora of pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical treatments to relieve pain and hasten healing.
In between breastfeeding her youngest boy, chasing after her oldest two boys, blogging and occasionally sleeping; Meg works with women to help them reach their breastfeeding goals. Meg has a degree in Psychology and was a La Leche League Leader (breastfeeding counsellor) for seven years before becoming an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. She writes frequently on her website about all things breastfeeding, is a guest blogger and has published articles in “Nurture Parenting Magazine” and “Natural Mother Magazine”. Needless to say she passionate about helping women reach their breastfeeding goals and loves helping to get the word out about how women can do this! She places a huge emphasis on sharing evidenced based research without the sugary coating.
Topic: Exclusively Breastfeeding Triplets-Case Studies - [View Abstract]
Now more than ever, people from all parts of the world are engaging in social media. Many IBCLC’s, midwives, nurses and doctors have social media accounts and use these to connect with breastfeeding mums. Along with the positives come some very real challenges. There are many circumstances where information has been shared and a huge backlash will occur from emotionally charged and aggressive mums who feel as though they are being judged and criticized for using artificial breastmilk. This presents a challenge to the health care provider as it can be time consuming to respond, exhausting keeping up with it all and can make some hesitant to share their thoughts and opinions. This presentation will cover examples of questions asked and mum’s responses, how to best handle and reply to negative comments and ways in which we can use social media in a positive and helpful light for breastfeeding mums.
Exclusively breastfeeding triplets can seem to many an unattainable goal, yet two women in Australia have not only reached their goals of breastfeeding their triplets exclusively, but have surpassed their original expectations of what they could achieve. This presentation will focus on two case studies and includes pictures of them breastfeeding their triplets in various positions. Both women have been successful at reaching their breastfeeding goals and are currently breastfeeding into toddlerhood due to many factors which will be discussed. These include the woman’s strong desire and motivation to breastfeed; how their births influenced their breastfeeding experiences; what effect the level of support had on reaching their goals and; their own beliefs as to why they feel they have been successful. The presentation will include how we as health care providers can best support women with multiples to reach their breastfeeding goals.
Nancy Mohrbacher was born and raised in the Chicago area, where she lives today. She is a board-certified lactation consultant who has been helping nursing mothers since 1982. Her breastfeeding books for parents and professionals include Breastfeeding Answers Made Simple and its Pocket Guide; Breastfeeding Made Simple(with Kathleen Kendall-Tackett); Working and Breastfeeding Made Simple; and Breastfeeding Solutions and its companion app for Android and iPhone.
Nancy currently contracts with hospitals to improve breastfeeding practices, writes for many publications, and speaks at events around the world. Nancy was in the first group of 16 to be honored for her lifetime contributions to breastfeeding with the designation FILCA, Fellow of the International Lactation Consultant Association.
Increasing the rate of exclusive breastfeeding is a public-health priority that can improve health outcomes of mothers and babies. Of the identified barriers to exclusive breastfeeding, few are more challenging than those related to mothers’ belief in their ability to breastfeed and their unrealistic expectations of breastfeeding and baby behavior. Learn how a woman’s breastfeeding self-efficacy impacts her feeding decisions, and how the research on self-efficacy should inform our strategies when working with families. Learn also why so many mothers supplement with formula, the role of culture in this decision, and some evidence-based strategies for addressing these issues.
Rachelle is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant® and a Registered Dietitian with a Masters of Science degree in health education. She has worked as a lactation consultant at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia since 1996 when she established the Lactation Support Program. Rachelle provides lactation consults for families of patients admitted to the hospital and assists mothers and babies with breastfeeding. She counsels families in the Fetal Heart Program prenatally to offer support and guidance related to breastfeeding an infant with congenital heart disease. She also has an outpatient clinic to help mothers with breastfeeding challenges. She specializes in nutrition-related problems including food allergies and poor growth. Rachelle is the co-author of the ILCA publication “Risks of Not Breastfeeding” and the ADA Position Statement on Breastfeeding. Rachelle has served on the Board for the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners® (IBLCE®) since 2009 and currently serves as Chair. She breastfed four children and has five grandchildren, all of whom were breastfed.
Sara Blair Lake, J.D., CAE serves as Executive Director of the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners® (IBLCE®), a global certification program with over twenty-six thousand certificants in ninety-six countries. She also serves as an ex officio Board member to the Monetary Investment for Lactation Consultant Certification (MILCC), an affiliated charitable organization which provides scholarships to individuals in need of financial support to pursue careers in lactation consulting.
Sara also currently serves on the International Section Council of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) and Chair of the 2014 Program Committee for the Annual Conference of the Institute for Credentialing Excellence. She has held senior positions with credentialing and association organizations for the past fifteen years and previously served as Chair for her own certification governing body, the Certified Association Executive (CAE) Commission of ASAE. Sara presents extensively regarding credentialing and association management, particularly in the international arena.
The development of a professional certification examination is a laborious and intensive process. Due to security issues, details regarding the development of specific examinations cannot be completely transparent. However, the general process for the development of certification examinations should be a public and transparent topic. While every certification examination is unique, the development process for most professional certification examinations following best practices is somewhat similar. If you have ever wanted to know about how professional certification examinations are developed, what the process involves or how professional certification examinations differ from other types of examinations, this is the session for you! Hear from the Chair and Executive Director of the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners® (IBCLC) on this relevant topic.
Robyn Roche-Paull, RN, BSN, IBCLC, has been working with breastfeeding mothers for over 14 years. She holds Bachelor's degrees in Maternal Child Health and Nursing. Currently, Robyn is a L&D and Postpartum RN at Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center, and also works with AD military mothers as an IBCLC. In addition, Robyn is a Board member of MiLCA (Military Lactation Consultants Association), and the Secretary for TALCA (Tidewater Area Lactation Consultant Association).
Robyn is an energetic and dynamic speaker who brings personal experience combined with evidence-based research to her presentations. Her motivation for speaking is to bring attention to subjects she feels are little understood, and yet affect many women. As a tattooed and pierced IBCLC, Robyn has a personal as well as professional interest in Body Modifications. With the rise in tattooing and piercings by the new generation of breastfeeding mothers, Robyn feels that the topic of Body Modifications and how it relates to breastfeeding, is very relevant.
Robyn lives in Virginia Beach with her husband and 3 school-age children.
In recent years there has been a large increase in the numbers of women obtaining various types of body modifications (such as piercings, tattoos) before, during and after childbearing. Very little has been written to guide health care practitioners in how to counsel new mothers on how various body modifications may impact breastfeeding and vice versa. This presentation will describe the incidence of and motivation for body modifications, how various body mods are performed, and highlight clinical breastfeeding issues that often arise in relation to body mods. A short discourse on the clash of cultures between body modifications and breastfeeding will also be explored.
Best Beginnings is a charity that was founded in 2006 by our CEO Alison Baum and achieved charitable status in 2007.
Best Beginnings Vision and Mission are to be a catalyst for changes by the development of innovative resources for parents and professionals to help reduce the inequalities in child health across the UK from pre conception through to a child’s 3rd Birthday.
The way we function is by reaching out to Health Care Professional and families through a media approach and this includes using Facebook, Twitter as well as the more traditional email and WebPages and the use of film telling the “story” from a parents perspective..
There are a number of major projects that have been initiated and are ongoing as well new projects that are in the process of being launched:
- • From Bump to Breastfeeding 2008
- • Small Wonders DVD 2012
- • Baby Express 2014
New projects
- • Maternal Mental Health Project
- • Bump Buddy App aimed at the under 25’s and available free of charge on iPhone or Smartphone ( due to be launched in November 2014)
The presentation is an overview of all of the work that is being continued and undertaken by the team at Best Beginnings with background data to support the work that we are performing here in the UK.
Veronique Darmangeat has a private practice as a certified Lactation Consultant in Paris, France. She proposes both home visits and office consultations. She also offers continuing education sessions for IBCLC Lactation Consultants, is part of a team offering initial lactation consultant training for candidates for the IBLCE exam, and does training in hospitals. She has in addition created “Lactissima”, a consulting service for businesses which proposes breastfeeding support programs for their employees returning from their maternity leave. She is the author of two books: L'Allaitement Malin and Allaiter et reprendre le travail.
Currently, many babies suffer from gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Studies on how to treat and feed these babies are all based on bottle-fed babies. Yet breast-fed babies can also suffer from severe GERD. Parents are often helpless and struggle to follow doctors’ recommendations on how the administrate the anti-reflux medication (before or after each meal) and on thickening the baby’s milk. As a result, in order to be treated, many babies are weaned when maternal milk remains the ideal food for the baby, particularly when suffering from GERD. In my experience as a lactation consultant (in a private practice), I have met a lot of babies suffering from GERD. It is possible to adapt breastfeeding to these babies in order to decrease the symptoms and allow their reflux to be effectively treated. Through clinical cases, I will review the particular benefits of maternal milk for these babies, recommended breastfeeding positions, feeding/nursing frequency, how to administer medication or to allow medical exploration while protecting breastfeeding, how to support parents on a daily basis.
Vicki Tapia, BS, IBCLC, RLC, is a lactation consultant with over 30 years experience working with breastfeeding mothers and babies on a daily basis, in both hospital and clinical settings. She has also had numerous articles published in peer-reviewed journals and spoken at breastfeeding conferences nationally and internationally. Serving as an LC on a medical mission had long been a goal of hers, so when an opportunity arose to join a medical brigade to the Dominican Republic in November of 2012, she didn’t hesitate to be part of the team.
The author shares her experiences and observations as part of a medical relief brigade serving in five different bateys (villages) near Monte Cristi in the Dominican Republic in November 2012. She reports many of the common barriers to breastfeeding, along with her reflections on affecting change in this developing island country. She describes her efforts to promote exclusive breastfeeding, focusing on education.
Dr Virginia Thorley is a pioneer of the breastfeeding movement in Australia. She was the first breastfeeding counsellor in Queensland and in 1985 was in the first cohort in the world to certify IBCLC. In 2008 she was one of the first Fellows of the International Lactation Consultant Association (FILCA). She has two Research Higher Degrees in History (MA and PhD) and her current research interests include influences on mothers' infant-feeding decisions, wet-nursing, milk-sharing and milk banking. Dr Thorley is an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of HPRC at the University of Queensland. She is the author of several books and book chapters and most recently was co-editor, with Melissa Vickers, of The 10th Step & Beyond: Mother Support for Breastfeeding. She has presented at conferences on five continents.
Topic: Marketing messages: bottles and teats across 160 years, 1851-2011 - [View Abstract]
Surely breastfeeding can't save lives today? What's unsafe about 'formula' feeding in a resource-rich region? These are common beliefs. Breastfeeding provides the infant's entire food needs for the first six months. The protection of life afforded by human milk at any age is important – everywhere. A resource-rich region can suddenly become resource-poor when a natural disaster, extreme weather or major civil upheaval strikes. Factors impacting the artificially-fed infant's food security are:
- dependence on transport of supplies from afar
- dependence on electricity or other fuel for boiling water, cleansing equipment, refrigeration
- dependence on unsafe water for reconstituting powdered 'formula' and hygienic preparation
- lack of support and privacy for mothers to relactate or access donor milk
- donation of 'formula' supplies – undermining breastfeeding
I shall now describe real experiences where breastfeeding saved the day and hypothetical scenarios based on fact.
During the 160 years 1851-2011, some designs of bottles and nipples appeared briefly; others were similar across brands and continued for years. Old and new designs often coexisted. A breast-shaped bottle briefly appeared in the mid-nineteenth century and has reappeared with different materials and modifications. Various valve systems have been tried. Complexity in bottle/nipple systems made some designs difficult to use, even unsafe. Old claims have repeatedly reappeared to market new products. These include: ‘anti-colic’, prevention of air swallowing, ‘natural’, ‘like mother’, ‘just like a mother’s breast’, ‘orthodontic’ and ‘slow’. As mothers commonly switched brands, some companies produced more than one design. Paying more is no guarantee that a product will be ‘better’. In practice, the more expensive bottles often resist attempts to ‘pace’ bottle-feeding when transitioning an infant to the breast. Marketing claims should be viewed with skepticism, as an evidence base from independent research is usually lacking.
Dr. Speakers Full Name
Speaker Credentials
Annet Mulder first became interested in breastfeeding in the year 2000, when she became a mother for the first time. During and because of her own breastfeeding experiences, in 2002 she became a volunteer with the Dutch breastfeeding Organization and in 2008 sat for and passed the exam administered by the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners. As an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, she now
Annet Mulder first became interested in breastfeeding in the year 2000, when she became a mother for the first time. During and because of her own breastfeeding experiences, in 2002 she became a volunteer with the Dutch breastfeeding Organization text text text text more name mulder first became interested in breastfeeding in the year 2000, when she became.
Dr. Speakers Full Name
Speaker Credentials