GOLD Speakers

Panel Discussion 2020

• Country: GOLD

Biography:

Paulina Erices MS, IBCLC, IMH-E (r), is a bilingual (Spanish) International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) in private practice and a Maternal Child Health Specialist for Jefferson County Public Health in Colorado. She holds a BS in Psychology from the Pennsylvania State University and a MS in Organizational Leadership from the University of Denver. Paulina is the coordinator for Adelante, the Latino Network for Health and Education and participates in several workgroups focused on child and family health, including the Early Childhood Colorado Partnership, the NICU Consortium, and the Community Leaders in Health Equity. Her areas of current work include providing direct service to families with babies who have been in the NICU and/or have other medical conditions; promoting maternal and infant mental health along the continuum of care; building community capacity to navigate health and education systems as well as influence program development/delivery; and establishing community-based participatory lactation programs to meet the needs of diverse communities. Paulina 's goal is to elevate the voices and influence of community members to effectively improve systems of care.

Vanessa Simmons, CLEC, is a published and professional photographer who has dedicated her recent work to her current photography project, NormalizeBreastfeeding.org. She was inspired by her own breastfeeding struggles, lack of support, and her desire to capture diverse variations of normal breastfeeding. Vanessa initiated the first International Day to Normalize Breastfeeding in an effort to raise awareness worldwide about how normal it is to breastfeed and pump on demand until the mother and child are ready to stop. She seeks to strengthen breastfeeding communities in the areas where local groups have been established worldwide. She encourages members of the local groups to meet up in person and connect with local resources. In April of 2018, Vanessa received her certificate in Lactation Education & Counseling from the University of California San Diego Extension program. She is native to San Diego where she currently resides with her husband and three children.

Lucy Ruddle, IBCLC, is a thriving private Practice on the South Coast and a busy Facebook page known for it's funny, relevant, and informative memes about breastfeeding and parenting. Lucy qualified in 2018 after 5 years of volunteering as a peer supporter and later as a breastfeeding counsellor for a national breastfeeding helpline. She has written a book on relactation, due to be published by Praeclarus Press in the near future. Lucy's interest in relactation started after she went through the process herself for her eldest baby, and her drive to qualify as an IBCLC came from a second challenging breastfeeding journey with her younger son who was unable to latch for several months. Aside from lactation, Lucy holds a diploma in Child Psychology and worked for 15 years in early years settings, both with the children and in roles supporting parents. She prides herself on her listening focused approach to lactation support, and sees it as the key to good practice in her own work.