75 CERPs IBCLC Recertification Education Bundle

Dr. Kelly McGlothen-Bell is an Assistant Professor at UT Health San Antonio, School of Nursing. As a nurse scientist, Dr. McGlothen-Bell is dedicated to understanding and resolving perinatal-infant health disparities in underrepresented groups, particularly among mother-infant dyads impacted by substance use disorders and preterm births. Dr. McGlothen-Bell uses interdisciplinary research, bio-behavioral methodologies, and community-engaged strategies to define and explore health priorities that can be remedied through culturally appropriate and sustainable health solutions. Her program of science focuses on understanding the relationship between infant feeding behaviors and readiness in high-risk infants and attunement between the primary caregiver and child during infancy and toddlerhood. The culmination of these findings contributes to the development of evidence-based interventions geared toward improving parental engagement and pediatric feeding success in marginalized populations. Dr. McGlothen-Bell has published numerous peer-reviewed articles related to developmental strategies for high-risk infants. She has also presented her work at conferences nationally and internationally. Dr. McGlothen-Bell has received numerous awards to include the 2019 National Association of Neonatal Nurses (NANN) Mentee/Mentor Grant Award. She was also selected as a 2019-2020 Academy Jonas Nurse Policy Scholar.

In her employed life Wendy was a community pharmacist and also worked in doctor surgeries supporting cost effective, evidence-based prescribing.
Wendy left paid work to concentrate on writing Breastfeeding and Medication (Routledge 2nd edition 2018), developing information and training material on drugs in breastmilk as well as setting up her own website www.breastfeeding-and-medication. She has also published Breastfeeding for Dads and Grandmas (Praeclarus Press) and Why Mothers Medication Matters (Pinter and Martin). She is also co editor of a book to be published January 2020 called A guide to breastfeeding for medical professionals (Routledge).

Wendy is known for her work on providing a service on the compatibility of drugs in breastmilk and has been a breastfeeding peer supporter for 30 years. She is passionate that breastfeeding should be valued by all and that medication should not be a barrier. She has 3 daughters and 5 grandchildren. All her family seem as passionate about breastfeeding as she is and currently all 3 of her daughters are breastfeeding.
She was awarded a Points of Light award by the Prime Minister in 2018 and nominated for an MBE in the New Year's Honours List 2018 for services to mothers and babies. She received her award at Windsor Castle in May 2019 from Her Majesty the Queen.

Catherine Watson Genna BS, IBCLC is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant in private practice in New York City. Certified in 1992, Catherine is particularly interested in helping moms and babies breastfeed when they have medical challenges and is an active clinical mentor. She speaks to healthcare professionals around the world on assisting breastfeeding babies with anatomical, genetic or neurological problems. Her presentations and her writing are enriched by her clinical photographs and videos. Catherine collaborates with Columbia University and Tel Aviv University Departments of Biomedical Engineering on research projects investigating the biomechanics of the lactating nipple and various aspects of sucking and swallowing in breastfeeding infants. She is the author of Selecting and Using Breastfeeding Tools: Improving Care and Outcomes (Praeclarus Press 2009) and Supporting Sucking Skills in Breastfeeding Infants (Jones and Bartlett Learning 2008, 2013, 2017) as well as professional journal articles and chapters in the Core Curriculum for Lactation Consultant Practice and Breastfeeding and Human Lactation. Catherine served as Associate Editor of the United States Lactation Consultant Association’s official journal Clinical Lactation for its first seven years.

Jada Wright Nichols is an Atlanta-based women’s wellness consultant. She graduated from Tennessee State University, with a bachelor’s degree in speech pathology and audiology. She has a master’s degree in occupational therapy and has worked in a variety of rehabilitation settings, across the life-span.

Additionally, she is a massage therapist, lymphedema therapist, holistic nutritionist, birth and postpartum doula, yoga instructor, and international board-certified lactation consultant (IBCLC). She is a lactation consultant at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, and the owner of Blossom Health and Maternal Wellness, and Bloom Early Intervention, which provide in-home and virtual services for new and expectant families, as they navigate various aspects of parenting, access, and equity.

Mariana Colmenares Castano was born in Mexico City, and from an early age she was fascinated by animals and nature.She studied medicine at the National University of Mexico (UNAM), and foundher passion as a pediatrician doing her residency at the National Pediatric Institute. When her first child was born she witnessed the lack of knowledge and commitment to breastfeeding within the medical profession, and so she decided to specialize in breastfeeding medicine. She certified as a Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) in 2011.Mariana is a member of the International Lactation Consultant Association, the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, and a proud founding member of the National Lactation Consultant Association of Mexico (ACCLAM), where she served on the Board of Directors as Education Coordinator (2014-2019). She is part of board director for the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine for a 3 year period (2019-2022) and recently named as secretary for the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine. Mariana is a member of the team for Breastfeeding Country Index BFCI, a project from Yale University and Universidad Iberoamericana. She is consultant for the National Health Institute in Mexico and has collaborated with UNICEF in breastfeeding projects and part of the steering committee for the WHO. She has spoken at national and international conferences, co-published numerous articles and co-authored a chapter for the National Academy of Medicine. At the moment she is a Clinical Fellow in Community Paediatrics in London.

Annie Frisbie has been an IBCLC in private practice since 2011. Her background is in media, where she worked very closely with producers, content developers, and tech thought leaders on business strategy, content development, contracts, legal clearances, and more. She has also produced training for professional media software solutions as well as created and managed print and video content for media professionals.
In 2018 she was honored with the US Lactation Consultant Association's President's Award, "awarding those that demonstrate extraordinary service to the association and profession."
She is a produced screenwriter and proud member of the Writers Guild of America, East. She have a BA from Franklin and Marshall College, and an MA in Cinema Studies from New York University. In a previous life I was a film critic. I live with my husband and our two children in Queens, New York.

Paulina is the mother of three multicultural Latino children and Project Director for Lifespan Local. Paulina earned her BS in Psychology from the Pennsylvania State University, a MS in Organizational leadership from the University of Denver and is completing her PhD in Health and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Colorado - Denver. Paulina has over 18 years of experience working with families with young children. As a Maternal Child Health specialist for Jefferson County Public Health, she developed a NICU follow-up home visitation program and the pediatric emergency preparedness plan, co-founded and coordinated the Conectando Network (former Adelante Jeffco), established community navigation and lactation support groups focused on the Latino Spanish speaking community, and lead other initiatives to support leadership and partnerships among communities and organizations. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she managed the new program Whole Community Inclusion to ensure the pandemic response and recovery implementation included health equity practices that recognize the needs and the strengths of priority populations in the county. Her areas of current work include promoting perinatal and infant mental health along the continuum of care; building community capacity to navigate health and education systems; facilitating organizational change to embrace linguistic and culturally responsive practices; and establishing community-placed participatory programs to strengthen communities. She likes to be with people, learn from and with others, and connect passions for meaningful work.

Philip O. Anderson, Pharm.D., FCSHP, FASHP is a Health Sciences Clinical Professor of Pharmacy at the UCSD Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences where he heads the course on drug information.
Dr. Anderson has lectured and published extensively on drug use during breastfeeding including in professional journals and textbooks, including original research on drug excretion into breastmilk. Dr. Anderson founded the LactMed® database, which is part of the National Library of Medicine’s Bookshelf. He continues to write LactMed® records and to expand the database. He has authored the medication appendix to the popular handbook, The Nursing Mothers' Companion. Dr. Anderson is the Pharmacology Editor of the professional journal, Breastfeeding Medicine, and writes a monthly column on medication use during breastfeeding for the journal. He has also been a consultant to the US Food and Drug Administration on the topic of drug labeling with respect to use during lactation.

Divya Sinha Parikh MD, IBCLC, FAAP is a board certified pediatrician practicing in Columbus, OH. She received her medical training at The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and completed her residency in general pediatrics at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital at Case Western Reserve University. She formerly served on the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative Committee at MetroHealth Hospital Systems in Cleveland, OH and created a breastfeeding medicine clinical rotation during residency. Within her practice, she has extensive experience managing lactation concerns and has taken a special interest in mentoring current and aspiring breastfeeding providers. She has presented her work at local and national meetings.

Dixie Whetsell, MS, IBCLC, has a Master’s Degree in Community Health Education from the University of Oregon. She began working with breastfeeding families in 1992 and became an IBCLC in 1998. She has worked as a lactation consultant in a variety of settings including private practice, county and state public health programs and high risk maternal and pediatric hospitals. She began teaching lactation training courses in 2003 and is currently an adjunct faculty member teaching in the Pathway 2 Lactation Training Program in the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health at Portland State University. She is a past presenter for the GOLD Perinatal Conference. She is an active member of the Oregon Washington Lactation Association, the US Lactation Consultant Association and the International Lactation Consultant Association. She was a founding Board Member for Northwest Mothers Milk Bank, a HMBANA non-profit donor milk bank.

Lisa Gonzales, BSN, RN, IBCLC earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Linfield College. She started her nursing career as a Labor and Delivery nurse at a Level III OB hospital in 2006. After having her first baby, Lisa pursued lactation education and became an IBCLC in 2013. She made full career change in 2015 to become a lactation nurse in a high risk maternity and pediatric hospital, providing inpatient and outpatient consults to growing families. She is an active member of the Oregon Washington Lactation Association, the US Lactation Consultant Association and the International Lactation Consultant Association. Lisa currently helps families during in-home visits with her private practice.

Ted Greiner received a PhD in nutrition for developing countries from Cornell University. For 19 years he worked as nutrition advisor for the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, based at Uppsala University where he was Associate Professor of International Child Health, helping to ensure their long-term support for IBFAN and WABA. Dr. Greiner was Professor of Nutrition at Hanyang University in South Korea for seven years. He has consulted for UNICEF, World Bank, FAO and others. He is now retired and edits the journal World Nutrition. He has lived in 8 countries and worked in 10 more. His areas of research expertise include infant feeding and programs to combat vitamin A, iron and iodine deficiency. In the 1970s, he did the first scientific work on the impact of baby food advertising on breastfeeding patterns. His PhD dissertation was on the planning and evaluation of a 1978-81 project to protect, support and promote breastfeeding in Yemen (terminology quickly adopted by UN agencies). Over the next decades, the duration of breastfeeding there doubled. During the planning the Innocenti meeting, he represented Sida, one of the 4 agencies involved. He was active in changing how WHO viewed HIV and infant feeding. He has over 100 breastfeeding-related publications.

Dr. Sharon Unger comes from the East Coast of Canada and is a neonatologist at Sinai Health System in Toronto, Canada. She is a co-primary investigator for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research funded OptiMoM and MaxiMoM programs of research as well as the medical director for the Rogers Hixon Ontario Human Milk Bank. Her research interests are primarily in the use of human milk for the high risk neonate and its long term impact.

Rebecca LR Powell, PhD, CLC is an Assistant Professor in the department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital. Currently Dr. Powell is analyzing the phagocytosis responses of various cell types to better understand the effects of phagocytosis receptor profiles and the impact of antibody specificity on the elicitation of biologic function. Additionally, Dr. Powell is studying the contribution of breast milk leukocytes to the relatively low rate of HIV transmission in infants exclusively breastfed by their HIV-infected mothers. She received her PhD in Microbiology from the Sackler Institute, New York University School of Medicine, and her CLC from the Healthy Children Project.

A Canadian living in France for more than 25 years, Juanita discovered breastfeeding with her three children and has never looked back.
She became a La Leche League Leader in 1997, and served on the boards of LLL France 2004-2008 and LLL Europe 2011-2018. She has been the regional representative of LLL Europe to WABA since 2007. Juanita became a lactation consultant in 2003 (IBCLC), recertifying in 2008 and 2013.
Juanita was the coordinator for the Journée Internationale de l’Allaitement (‘JIA’ – International Breastfeeding Conference for health professionals organized by LLL France) in 2003 and 2008. She helped create and implement the Peer Counsellor Programme in France (Programme relais allaitement- Prall).
The WHO Code is one of her passions! She has spoken on the Code at conferences around the world. Member of the Coordination française pour l’allaitement maternel (CoFam) since 2007, she was head of the Task Force on the Code and ethical questions. As a member of IBFAN *and GIFA, she was given the opportunity to participate in international meetings of the Codex Alimentarius and the OECD in Paris, as well as in week-long IBFAN conferences in Montecatini, Italy in 2007, and in Geneva in 2008. She also attended the Committee on the Convention on Rights of the Child in Geneva for IBFAN and helped prepare a country report on France underlining the importance of breastfeeding and the need to apply the Code (2009). She is an active member of IBFAN’s Global Working Group on Contaminants in Breastmilk. In 2018, she represented LLLI at the second NetCode meeting in Geneva.

Duncan Fisher promotes and develops support for parents to advance child health and development. In the last year he has been working with breastfeeding researchers across the world and with the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action to advance the idea of "breastfeeding as teamwork", following striking findings from research of the high gains from engaging with fathers and other family members. In UK he co-founded the Fatherhood Institute and for three years he served on the Board of the Government’s gender equality body, the Equal Opportunities Commission. He manages the website, FamilyIncluded.com, where all recent research on breastfeeding and fathers/families is reported. He initiated and currently manages a website for Cambridge and Princeton Universities reporting research on child welfare and development, ChildandFamilyBlog.com. He was awarded an OBE by the Queen in 2008 for his “services to children”. Duncan lives in Wales and divides his time between family work and work to support sustainable economic development in his home country.

Nikki Hunter Greenaway is a board-certified family nurse practitioner and internationally board-certified lactation consultant in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 2011, she founded Nurse Nikki Family & Maternity Services, a health consulting firm where she educates and counsels women, families, schools and businesses about pregnancy, birth, postpartum, breastfeeding, and new baby care. October 2018 she opened Bloom Maternal Health, a women’s health clinic that provides prenatal counseling and postpartum recovery care. Nurse Nikki is the co-founder of Louisiana’s first free-standing infant feeding clinic, the New Orleans Breastfeeding Center. She also co-created Café au Lait Breastfeeding Circle for Families of Color and Nikki & Nikki Lactation Career Consultants two important resources needed to improve breastfeeding outcomes specifically in the Black community. Nikki is a wife and mother of 3 mini breastfeeding activists.

Dr. Jessie Young is a Pediatric Chiropractor near Olympia Washington who works closely with other healthcare professionals to provide comprehensive and collaborative care. She has specialized education in treating breastfeeding difficulties and is near completion of her IBCLC certification. As part of a family's health care team, Dr. Young helps resolve musculoskeletal issues causing breastfeeding difficulties including neck tension, TMJ dysfunction, torticollis, and painful latch. She also provides pre and post-frenotomy care for musculoskeletal issues contributing to tethered oral tissue. Providers, parents and patients rely on Dr. Young for her comprehensive diagnostic and treatment approaches, including modified chiropractic adjustments, myofascial release, therapeutic exercise, and craniosacral techniques. Dr. Young currently volunteers to promote literature contributions and advancement as the Research Chair for the American Chiropractic Association Council on Chiropractic Pediatrics.

Lucy is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) Holistic Sleep Coach (HSC), public speaker, and author on the topic of lactation. She is also a qualified counsellor, child and is qualified in child development and child psychology.

Lucy runs a small but thriving Private Practice based on the South Coast of the UK but sees clients internationally. As a single mother of two boys who were hard to breastfeed, and as someone with ADHD, Lucy truly understands the highs and lows of parenthood both for neurotypical families and those who may have additional challenges.

Lucy’s approach is strongly underpinned by the belief that parents are the only true expert on their child, and that parental instinct is rarely wrong. Lucy uses listening and counselling skills first and foremost in her work, and prides herself on striving to provide a safe and inclusive space for everyone.

Robinson (Rob) Reed (pronouns: they/them) is a certified nurse midwife and international board certified lactation consultant providing full scope midwifery and lactation care at Swedish Midwifery First Hill in Seattle, WA. As a queer and nonbinary healthcare provider, Rob is passionate about providing sex-positive, gender-affirming, trauma-informed care to their patients. Rob draws from over a decade of mindfulness practice to integrate compassion and intentional presence with the busyness of clinical practice. In addition to precepting midwifery students, Rob offers mentorship to queer and trans future healthcare providers, and consults with hospital maternity units on issues around gender inclusivity in sexual and reproductive healthcare and lactation care.

Bryna is a lactation consultant, mentor, educator, and birth doula in the Pacific Northwestern United States. They are active in their community as an advocate for mutual aid, reproductive justice, and reduction in barriers to care. They also own and manage an inclusive private practice. As a member of both Queer and Neurodivergent communities, offering inclusive care on every level is very important to Bryna. Their vision is to offer information and tools to providers to build a community of comprehensive, concordant, and individualized care for all families in the perinatal period.

Angela Lober has been an educator and clinician for over 19 years. She has been an Internationally Board Certified Lactation Consultant since 2005 providing evidence-based care within an academic medical center and within her community. Angela is the Director of the Arizona State University Lactation Education Programs offering on-line and academic elective on breastfeeding and lactation. She completed her PhD at Arizona State University's College of Nursing and Healthcare Innovation focused on the breastfeeding complexities of late preterm infants.

Ellen is the lactation services manager at Intermountain Healthcare Primary Children’s Hospital. She has a Master’s Degree in Public Health Nutrition, is a Registered Dietitian and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. Ellen has the unique advantage of using her nutrition knowledge as a lactation consultant. She has a passion for providing human milk for patients with nutritional challenges such as chylothorax and colitis. Her work on fat free human milk is published and has received national review. One of her career goals is to increase knowledge of nurses and healthcare providers regarding human milk immunology and breastfeeding thus improving lactation duration. Ellen has worked with the special needs breastfeeding dyad for the past 20 years at Primary Children’s Hospital to promote breastfeeding and human milk feeding. She designed, set up and manages the Mothers Milk Center at Primary Children’s hospital which opened in 2015. Ellen has presented at local, state and national meetings. She also has experience working at a corporate level with lactation consultants developing breastfeeding policies and protocols as well as lactation education programs for nurses and health care professionals.

Educator with the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA). She has a particular interest in breastfeeding and Down syndrome after her son was born with Down syndrome in 2014. Her journey of breastfeeding her son included a long inpatient hospitalization stay due to his treatment for cancer. She has worked in disability services for over 20 years including community learning disability nursing in the UK, supporting GPs to manage the heath needs of people with complex health conditions and intellectual disability, medical undergraduate education in intellectual disability and currently works in general practice as a Practice Disability Nurse. Heather facilitates Breastfeeding Education Classes to expectant parents, is a Trainer & Assessor in ABA’s training team and provides guidance and contributes to publications on breastfeeding a baby with Down syndrome.

Laurel Wilson, IBCLC, CLE, CCCE, CLD is a TEDx and international speaker, author, pregnancy and lactation expert, and consultant. She served as the Executive Director of Lactation Programs for CAPPA, the Childbirth and Postpartum Professional Association for 16 years and now is on the Senior Advisor Board. She served on the Board of Directors for the United States Breastfeeding Committee from 2016-2019. She also is on the Advisory Board for InJoy Health. She owns MotherJourney, focusing on training perinatal professionals on integrative and holistic information regarding pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. She has her degree in Maternal Child Health: Lactation Consulting and is an internationally board certified lactation consultant. As the co-author of two books, The Attachment Pregnancy and The Greatest Pregnancy Ever, original Editor of the CAPPA Lactation Educator Manual, and contributing author to Round the Circle: Doulas Talk About Themselves, she loves to blend today’s recent scientific findings with the mind/body/spirit wisdom. Laurel has been joyfully married to her husband for nearly three decades and has two wonderful grown sons, whose difficult births led her on a path towards helping emerging families create positive experiences. She believes that the journey into parenthood is a life-changing rite of passage that should be deeply honored and celebrated.

Lyndsey is an experienced paediatric nurse, children’s public health nurse, International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, Holistic Sleep Coach, researcher and responsive parenting advocate. She has worked in hospitals, clinics, the community and within clients’ homes for 20 years, serving within the UK NHS, in private practice and voluntarily.
The co-founder and clinical director of the Holistic Sleep Coaching program, Lyndsey regularly teaches internationally, as well as providing mentorship for newer sleep coaches. She is passionate about responsive feeding, gentle parenting and promoting parental confidence and well-being.
With Professor Amy Brown, she is the co-founder of Thought Rebellion – an education and publishing company seeking to inspire, challenge and equip professionals and writers in the parenting, lactation and perinatal space with an evidence based revolution.
Lyndsey is currently a PhD researcher at Swansea University, exploring the needs and challenges of medically complex breastfed infants and children. In 2019 she set up the Breastfeeding the Brave project to raise awareness of the unique breastfeeding needs of chronically, critically, and terminally ill children in the paediatric setting. The mother of a childhood cancer survivor, she often talks about the impact of chronic serious illness on families, and seeks to support other families living through a serious childhood illness.
Lyndsey is a respected international speaker and teacher, and regularly speaks out against the dominant sleep training culture, as well as advocating for the rights of families to receive high-quality, compassionate and expert support. She is the author of Holistic Sleep Coaching (2018), Let’s talk about your new family’s sleep (2020), Still Awake (2021), Breastfeeding the Brave (2022) and co-author of The Writing Book (2022).

Mariana Colmenares Castano was born in Mexico City, and from an early age she was fascinated by animals and nature.She studied medicine at the National University of Mexico (UNAM), and foundher passion as a pediatrician doing her residency at the National Pediatric Institute. When her first child was born she witnessed the lack of knowledge and commitment to breastfeeding within the medical profession, and so she decided to specialize in breastfeeding medicine. She certified as a Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) in 2011.Mariana is a member of the International Lactation Consultant Association, the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, and a proud founding member of the National Lactation Consultant Association of Mexico (ACCLAM), where she served on the Board of Directors as Education Coordinator (2014-2019). She is part of board director for the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine for a 3 year period (2019-2022) and recently named as secretary for the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine. Mariana is a member of the team for Breastfeeding Country Index BFCI, a project from Yale University and Universidad Iberoamericana. She is consultant for the National Health Institute in Mexico and has collaborated with UNICEF in breastfeeding projects and part of the steering committee for the WHO. She has spoken at national and international conferences, co-published numerous articles and co-authored a chapter for the National Academy of Medicine. At the moment she is a Clinical Fellow in Community Paediatrics in London.

Mariana Colmenares Castano was born in Mexico City, and from an early age she was fascinated by animals and nature.She studied medicine at the National University of Mexico (UNAM), and foundher passion as a pediatrician doing her residency at the National Pediatric Institute. When her first child was born she witnessed the lack of knowledge and commitment to breastfeeding within the medical profession, and so she decided to specialize in breastfeeding medicine. She certified as a Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) in 2011.Mariana is a member of the International Lactation Consultant Association, the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, and a proud founding member of the National Lactation Consultant Association of Mexico (ACCLAM), where she served on the Board of Directors as Education Coordinator (2014-2019). She is part of board director for the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine for a 3 year period (2019-2022) and recently named as secretary for the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine. Mariana is a member of the team for Breastfeeding Country Index BFCI, a project from Yale University and Universidad Iberoamericana. She is consultant for the National Health Institute in Mexico and has collaborated with UNICEF in breastfeeding projects and part of the steering committee for the WHO. She has spoken at national and international conferences, co-published numerous articles and co-authored a chapter for the National Academy of Medicine. At the moment she is a Clinical Fellow in Community Paediatrics in London.

Divya Sinha Parikh MD, IBCLC, FAAP is a board certified pediatrician practicing in Columbus, OH. She received her medical training at The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and completed her residency in general pediatrics at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital at Case Western Reserve University. She formerly served on the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative Committee at MetroHealth Hospital Systems in Cleveland, OH and created a breastfeeding medicine clinical rotation during residency. Within her practice, she has extensive experience managing lactation concerns and has taken a special interest in mentoring current and aspiring breastfeeding providers. She has presented her work at local and national meetings.

Andrea Herron, is one of the first and longest continuous certified pediatric nurse practitioners in the United States. After more than 40 years working with breastfeeding mothers and their babies and teaching parenting classes, she is among one of the most experienced consultant in the field of lactation. Regardless of the issue or concern, Andrea has guided thousands of mothers to meet their breastfeeding and early parenting goals through support groups, lactation consultations, and childrearing education. After receiving a Master's in pediatric nursing from UCLA, Andrea became an early pioneer in the back-to-breastfeeding movement, and educated health professionals as an instructor in the UCLA lactation educator course, all over the United States. Her private lactation practice, Growing with Baby in San Luis Obispo, California, was used as the national model for private practices by Women Infant and Children (WIC), the federally funded health and nutrition program. One of her favorite and most popular topics she teaches through her Growing with Baby parenting groups is, Understanding Your Infant’s Temperament. This topic and many of the other topics she teaches are included in her newly released book, Suckle, Sleep, Thrive: Breastfeeding Success Through Understanding Your Baby’s Cues. Co-written with Lisa Rizzo.

Andrea has been married to Larry Herron, an orthopedic spine surgeon, for over 35 years. They are the proud parents of a grown son, two Labradors, a cat, and parrot. The couple reside in Shell Beach, California.

Rachel Dean serves as a Registered Dietitian and International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant, with a Bachelor of Science in Nutritional Sciences from Penn State University and a Master’s in Public Health from the Department of Maternal and Child Health at the UNC Chapel Hill. She also completed her lactation training through the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute.
Her career has included providing maternal and pediatric nutrition counseling through WIC and SNAP programs and working on local and regional levels to provide nutrition and feeding education and support. Currently, she serves as the owner of Harmony Nutrition & Lactation, LLC, where she supports parents of color and helps them feel comfortable with nourishing themselves and their little ones.
Rachel is passionate about decreasing racial health disparities and achieving health equity among all people. She helped create and was the Program Director for the first two cohorts of the Lactation Consultant Training Program at Johnson C Smith University, the first Pathway 2 training program implemented at a historically black college/university in an effort to help diversify the field of lactation. She also serves as the Executive Director and Cofounder of Queen City Cocoa B.E.A.N.S., a non-profit organization that assists new and expectant families of color in improving their health and achieving a more balanced lifestyle through nutrition, lactation education, and support.

Anna Le Grange is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, Registered Pediatric Nurse, Mindfulness teacher and Author. She has worked with new families for over 20 years in a variety of clinical roles. Anna brings her passion for psychology, neuroscience and mindfulness into her lactation support work and facilitates other professionals to incorporate emotional well-being tools into their own lactation practice. Mother to 3 children, Anna breastfed her 3rd child following breast reduction surgery and experienced first-hand, the emotional challenges that so often relate to infant feeding complexities. She used her personal experiences alongside mindfulness and lactation knowledge, to create a toolbox of techniques for breastfeeding families, which she includes in her courses and book, The Mindful Breastfeeding Book. Anna believes whole-heartedly in prioritizing calm and connection within our breastfeeding support practices, both for our clients and ourselves. Anna is currently studying for a MSc in Positive Psychology at Buckingham New University and has spoken at various events including the Gold Lactation, ILactation Conference and Nurturing The Future.

Leslie has been providing lactation support in Central New Jersey for over 18 years - as a La Leche League (LLL) leader since 2002, an IBCLC at Mercer County WIC from 2014 to 2016, and as a private practice IBCLC since 2011.

Leslie grew up in New York and New Jersey. She graduated from Cook College/Rutgers with a BS in Biochemistry, and from Rutgers University/UMDNJ with a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Leslie's difficulties with early breastfeeding, the help she received from LLL, and challenges with returning to work laid the foundation for her understanding of the importance of skilled and compassionate lactation and infant feeding support.

Shondra Mattos is an IBCLC (Internationally Board-certified Lactation Consultant) and owner of a Location-independent lactation practice where she provides breastfeeding and infant feeding support to families countrywide.

Shondra finds the science of lactation fascinating, and as such, she has a passion for sharing her understanding of complex lactation subjects with her colleagues and aspiring lactation students. When she's not with clients, speaking, or teaching, she spends time with her husband and daughter in Fayetteville, NC.

Bryna is a lactation consultant, mentor, educator, and birth doula in the Pacific Northwestern United States. They are active in their community as an advocate for mutual aid, reproductive justice, and reduction in barriers to care. They also own and manage an inclusive private practice. As a member of both Queer and Neurodivergent communities, offering inclusive care on every level is very important to Bryna. Their vision is to offer information and tools to providers to build a community of comprehensive, concordant, and individualized care for all families in the perinatal period.

As a Pediatrician and an IBCLC, Shacchee is attracted to ways of promoting health and well-being for families. She transitioned to lactation support 14 years ago after her first daughter was born, realising the felt need for skilled Lactation Support in her community.

She works at a tertiary care hospital in New Delhi, India, and heads a Lactation team, supporting families in their antenatal, intra-natal and postnatal periods. She also trains medical and paramedical staff in skilled lactation support.

She is the current President and Executive Team member of ALPI (Association of Lactation Professionals India). She works as a clinical instructor, helping train future lactation professionals in various aspects of Skills, Ethics, Scope of Practise and Communication. She co-ordinates between Public and Private healthcare bodies to provide equitable lactation support across her community.

She is an advocate of teamwork in supporting dyads with special lactation challenges (oral restrictions/ NICU babies etc) and has been working to bring experts from different fields together for comprehensive lactation support. Working with different teams locally and nationally allowed her to achieve the goal of making, "skilled lactation support a reality in India."

Married to Vipul, they have two super girls Navya (14) and Ayana(11).

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.

Dr. Diane DiTomasso achieved a Diploma in Nursing from Newport Hospital School of Nursing; a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, a Master of Science in Nursing Education, and a PhD from the University of Rhode Island. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Rhode Island College of Nursing.

Her research focus is human lactation and infant weight. She has multiple publications in journals such as Journal of Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing (JOGNN), Journal of Human Lactation, Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing, and Nursing for Women’s Health and has presented her work nationally and internationally.

Dr. DiTomasso has received various honors and awards with the most recent being the 2020 Suzanne Feetham Nurse Scientist Family Research Award by the Eastern Nursing Research Society (ENRS) and the 2020 Best of JOGNN Award as first author of the article, “Systematic Review of Expected Weight Changes After Birth for Full-Term, Breastfed Newborn. She has served as Principal Investigator for a variety of neonatal research studies. Dr. DiTomasso is a member of AWHONN, the International Lactation Consultant Association, the Eastern Nursing Research Society, and Sigma Theta Tau International. She currently serves as a Member on the AWHONN Research Advisory Panel.

Johanna Sargeant is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, teacher and writer based in Zurich, Switzerland. She is passionate about utilising her background in education, biological science, psychology and language to empower parents with empathetic support and evidence-based information through her private practice, Milk and Motherhood.

Originally from Australia, Johanna provides much-needed English-speaking support to many thousands of parents throughout Switzerland and across Europe, and has recently been writing new education modules for the European Society of Paediatric Research and the European Society of Neonatology. She has taught at the University of Zurich, has spoken as a panelist for the WHO's Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative congress in Geneva, has been an expert speaker and facilitator for Google, and has presented at a wide variety of international conferences. The complexities of her personal feeding experiences fuels her passion for providing knowledgeable, guilt-free infant feeding support globally.

Divya Sinha Parikh MD, IBCLC, FAAP is a board certified pediatrician practicing in Columbus, OH. She received her medical training at The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and completed her residency in general pediatrics at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital at Case Western Reserve University. During residency, she created a breastfeeding medicine clinical rotation.

Within her practice, she has extensive experience managing lactation concerns and has taken a special interest in mentoring current and aspiring breastfeeding providers. She has presented her work at local and national meetings.

Rachel Walker received her master’s degree in exercise science and wellness from Old Dominion University and a PhD in nutritional sciences from Penn State University. Her PhD work focused on lipid metabolism and insulin resistance. She has over 3 years of experience teaching both nutrition and exercise science courses.

In 2020, she was selected for a research fellowship from the United States Department of Agriculture for her study, ‘The Role of Metabolic Health and Lipid Metabolism in Human Lactation and Milk Composition’. Her current research is focused on the effects of insulin resistance during pregnancy and lactation, especially with the goal of developing therapies to improve lactation.

She has presented her research at numerous national meetings. Rachel’s proudest achievement is becoming Mommy to her 3 children, Clark, Lee, and Nora.

Marie Zahorick, MS, APRN, FNP-C, IBCLC became a La Leche League Leader in 1999 and an IBCLC in 2005. After several years of working as a hospital-based bilingual Spanish-speaking IBCLC, she attended nursing school and eventually became a board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner. In the meantime, she continued working as a hospital-based lactation consultant doing inpatient, outpatient, and Level III NICU lactation. She did not get much sleep.

After graduate school, Marie was recruited to work as a nurse practitioner in psychiatry. She was fellowship-trained to manage patients in the acute inpatient setting, partial hospitalization, outpatient office, and OB patients in the general hospital setting.

She specializes in women’s psychiatry, especially medical management of women who are pregnant or lactating. Her expertise also includes general psychopharmacology. She is experienced at diagnosing and treating mental conditions such as bipolar disorder, perinatal/postpartum mood and anxiety disorders, postpartum psychosis, obsessive-compulsive disorder, premenstrual and perimenopausal mood disorders, and personality disorders.

She lives in the Chicago area with her husband and three adult children in the transient stage of life. Her children all breastfed for at least two years but now just make faces when confronted with that fact.

Wendy is a breast biologist at the University of Adelaide, Australia. Her research explores the biology of how the breast develops and functions to better understand how disease states occur, including lactation mastitis and breast cancer.

After postdoctoral research as an NHMRC CJ Martin Fellow at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, USA, Wendy returned to Adelaide in 2005 and established the Breast Biology and Cancer Unit at the University of Adelaide. In 2011 she was appointed a National Breast Cancer Foundation Fellow and also The Hospital Research Foundation Associate Professor of Breast Cancer Research, which is her current appointment.

In 2016 Wendy won the Award for Excellence in Reproductive Biology Research from the Society for Reproductive Biology. Wendy’s research challenges old paradigms and explores new concepts in how the breast develops and functions to improve breast health across the life course.

Dr. Smaranda Nay is a Family Doctor, an IBCLC, a Personal Development Counselor and a mother. She has been studying Transactional Analysis psychotherapy since 2007 and is now in her second year of training to become a Somatic Experience therapist. She uses her knowledge to teach parents how to connect with their children and how to attune to their babies’ needs, both through individual counselling sessions and in classes. She is part of the Romanian Lactation Consultants Association and holds lactation education courses for future IBCLCs. She gives lactation counselling consults and holds breastfeeding and childcare courses.

She also holds personal development workshops for teenagers and adults, collaborating with non-formal education organizations and schools. She is particularly curious about the development of an attuned relationship between people and building intimacy and trust. Working with babies, she observes the parent-child connection and explores its potential in healing and growth, and how it impacts the future development of the individual. Working with teenagers and adults, she facilitates ways in which childhood disruptions can be healed in the present.

Tom Johnston is unique as a midwife and lactation consultant and the father of eight breastfed children. Recently retired after 27 years in the US Army, he is now an Assistant Professor of Nursing at Methodist University where he teaches, among other things, Maternal-Child Nursing and Nutrition. You may have heard him at a number of conferences at the national level, to include the Association of Woman’s Health and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN), the International Lactation Consultant’s Association (ILCA), or perhaps at dozens of other conferences across the country. In his written work he routinely addresses fatherhood and the role of the father in the breastfeeding relationship and has authored a chapter on the role of the father in breastfeeding for “Breastfeeding in Combat Boots: A survival guide to breastfeeding in the military”.

Dr. Nastassia Harris is a licensed registered nurse with over 15 years’ experience in perinatal nursing and became an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant in 2009.

Nastassia serves as an assistant professor in the school of nursing at Montclair State University. Over her career Nastassia developed a passion for eliminating disparities in black infant and maternal health. In 2018, she went on to found a nonprofit, the Perinatal Health Equity Foundation where she serves as the executive director. Through the nonprofit, Nastassia established Sistahs Who Breastfeed, a breastfeeding support group for black women which operates in several NJ cities.

She is active in several committees and organizations including the Association of Women's Health Obstetrics and Neonatal Nursing and the Black Mamas Matter Alliance. Nastassia's research and clinical interests include implicit bias/racism in healthcare, breastfeeding in the black community, obstetrical violence, high risk OB, and reproductive justice.

Michal A. Young, M.D., FAAP, FABM is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health at Howard University College of Medicine. She also serves as the Medical Director of the B.L.E.S.S. (Breastfeeding Lactation Education Support Services) Initiative as well as Director of the NICU and Newborn Services, at Howard University Hospital. She is a graduate of Howard University College of Medicine, Class of 1979. Dr. Young completed a rotating internship in Medicine and Pediatrics at Grady Memorial and Emory Hospitals in Atlanta, Georgia, followed by a Pediatric residency in the Howard University Hospital/D.C. General Hospital Combined Program, and a fellowship in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at Georgetown University Hospital.

Dr. Young has several publications and presentations over a range of topics governing infant care. Her research interests are in developmental outcomes of the ELBW, HIV perinatal transmission, the Diabetic Dyad and in breastfeeding education for professionals and parents.

She is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha, a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics (sections on Perinatal Medicine and Breastfeeding), a Fellow and member of the Board of Directors of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (Chairman of its Protocol Committee), member of the National Medical Association (a Past Chair of its Pediatric Section), Member of the Board of Directors for the D.C. Breastfeeding Coalition, Member of the Board of Directors for ROSE: Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere, Inc., one of the Chapter Breastfeeding Coordinators for the D.C. Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and Board Member of the Prolacta Bioscience Foundation.

Robin Kaplan has been an IBCLC since 2009, the same year that she opened up the San Diego Breastfeeding Center. She founded the San Diego Breastfeeding Center Foundation in 2016, a 501(c)3 organization whose mission is to reduce breastfeeding disparities among families of color and low-income families, as well as provide scholarships for women of color to become IBCLCs.

Robin was the founding host of the Boob Group podcast and published her first book, Latch: a Handbook for Breastfeeding with Confidence at Every Stage in 2018. Robin’s center has been a clinical training site for the UCSD Lactation Consultant program since 2015.

In 2019/2020, Robin helped write the curriculum for the University of California San Diego Lactation Educator Counselor program and was the Program Manager for the UCSD Curriculum Development Team for the Pathway 1&2 Lactation Consultant program. Robin has a BA from Washington University in St Louis and Masters in Education from University of California Los Angeles. Robin is currently attending the Functional Nutrition Alliance to become a Functional Nutrition Counselor.

Kathryn Stagg is mum to 4 boys, twins and 2 subsequent singletons. She trained as a breastfeeding peer supporter and volunteered in the groups for years in and around Harrow, NW London, UK.

Kathryn caught the breastfeeding support bug and decided to further her knowledge training as a Breastfeeding Counsellor with the Association of Breastfeeding Mothers and then qualifying as an IBCLC 5 years ago. Kathryn started Breastfeeding Twins and Triplets Facebook group almost 8 years ago and it now has over 9000 members. It has recently been made into a UK charity. Kathryn is passionate about delivering high quality breastfeeding support to as many twin and triplet families as possible, creating resources and educating health care professionals and breastfeeding supporters. She runs a small private practice and continues to teach music part time, her original career path. Kathryn is the author of Breastfeeding Twins and Triplets; a guide for professionals and parents. /p>

Annette Leary is a registered nurse with over 33 years of experience working in Maternal Child Health (pediatrics, postpartum, home health care and level 2 NICU). She became an IBCLC in 1995. She owns a private practice providing office, in home, and virtual visits at Orlando Lactation and Wellness. In 2022 she formed a collaborative company Baby B.L.I.S.S. : Central Florida Feeding Collaborative where she and her business partners help families prenatally, antepartum and post partum navigate the growth, development and feeding journey of their children. She began her craniosacral therapy training through the Upledger Institute in 2015, taking advanced maternal and pediatric specialty classes. Annette has found great improvement incorporating craniosacral therapy techniques with lactation consulting. Helping Families Latch onto Parenting has always been her mantra.

Liz Brooks is a private practice International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) and licensed lawyer, with expertise in criminal, administrative, non-profit, ethics, and lactation-related law. Liz offers in-home lactation consultations, and bedside care and teaching in two Baby-Friendly-designated hospitals.

She has been a leader in organizations for IBCLCs, breastfeeding promotion, and non-profit human milk banking. She authored the only textbook on legal and ethical issues for the IBCLC, and writes on health care ethics, equity, and conflict-of-interest in several books, blogs, and peer-reviewed journals.

She is a popular international conference speaker, offering practical tips with wit and wisdom for anyone who works with lactating and human milk-using families. Liz self-identifies as a cisgender hetero white woman with unearned privilege, and uses she/her/hers pronouns.

Dr. Hazelbaker has been a therapist in private practice 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 Lymph Drainage Therapy practitioner, a Tummy Time™ Trainer, a Haller Method practitioner, A Pre and Perinatal Psychology Educator, a Lactation Therapist Diplomate, an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant and a fellow of the International Lactation Consultant Association.

She earned her Master’s Degree from Pacific Oaks College (Human Development specializing in Human Lactation) and her doctorate from The Union Institute and University (Psychology, specializing in Energetic and Transformational healing.)

People recognize her as an expert on infant sucking issues caused by various structural problems like torticollis, plagiocephaly, brachycephaly and tissue shock-trauma. She invented the Hazelbaker™ FingerFeeder and the Infant Breastfeeding CranioSacral Protocol™ to assist in the resolution of this type of infant sucking dysfunction.

Dr. Camila Palma obtained her Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS) from Universidad Tecnológica de México (UNITEC), Mexico City. She also holds a Master of Science in Dentistry in Pediatric Dentistry (MSc) from the University of Barcelona, Spain and was certified as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) in 2019. Dr. Palma is Associate Professor in the Pediatric Dentistry Postgraduate Department, Peruvian University Cayetano Heredia, and Vice-president of the Peruvian Society of Pediatric Dentistry (2021-2023). She also has her own Pediatric Dentistry dental practice in Lima, Peru (Chis Dental). Dr. Palma is the author of several scientific articles, especially in caries prevention and infant oral healthcare. She is also a lecturer in Latin American and European Dental and Lactation Conferences and content creator on children´s oral health for parents through her YouTube channel (Dra. Camila Palma), instagram and Facebook accounts (@chisdental).

Associate Professor Luke Grzeskowiak is a clinical pharmacist and Practitioner Fellow in the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University and the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute, Australia. He is passionate about improving health outcomes for mothers and babies through the development and promotion of more effective and safer approaches towards medicines use. Luke has been undertaken research involving the use of domperidone for 10-years. He is currently the lead investigator on a number of projects examining the use of domperidone to increase breast milk supply in clinical practice, predictors of treatment response to domperidone, and causes of low breast milk supply. He is also the lead investigator on a large clinical trial comparing the effects of different doses of domperidone in the treatment of lactation insufficiency. He has published widely on the topic of treatment for low breast milk supply, with many of these publications cited in clinical practice guidelines locally and internationally.

Anya Kleinman is a general pediatrician who works at Akron Children's Hospital in Akron, Ohio caring for the range of patients from birth to late adolescence. She uses her IBCLC expertise to counsel new parents and promote breastfeeding in the ER.

Bianca Balassiano has been working with families in private practice since 2008 as an IBCLC and perinatal psychologist/maternal-child health specialist. As a natural consequence of her professional background, has supported breastfeeding families into achieving individual goals while maintaining mental health and stimulating a holistic look towards the subject. Since 2014 is also working as an educator for healthcare professionals in one of the most recognized breastfeeding courses in Brazil, currently offering virtual classes and all over the country. Lives with husband and two children in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 2020, she launched her first book aimed at families with the title "Gradual Weaning: How to Bring Your Breastfeeding Story to a Happy End".

After a career as a primary school teacher and Deputy Headteacher in central London, Emma trained with the Association of Breastfeeding Mothers, qualifying as a breastfeeding counsellor with them in 2007 and continuing with them as their trustee and chair. Emma first qualified as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant in 2011. She has supported families at groups in North London for 14 years as a volunteer and has a small private practice. Her book, “You’ve Got It In You: a positive guide to breastfeeding” was followed by “The Breast Book: a puberty guide with a difference – it’s the when, why and how of breasts” (published by Pinter and Martin). Her articles have been featured in print and online including on the UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative website. Her article, 'The dangerous obsession with the infant feeding interval' is her most popular. She has two children and lives in London.

Gretchen Becker Crabb is an Occupational Therapist, Licensed Professional Counselor, and Endorsed Infant Mental Health Therapist. She is also a Certified Lactation Counselor, La Leche League Leader, and Brazleton Newborn Observation (NBO) trainer.

Gretchen’s passion is rooted in fostering lifelong relationships and connection through co-regulation in pregnancy and beyond. Her unique approach to lactation support and therapy is rooted in culturally attuned sensory, somatic, and trauma-informed mental health techniques.

Gretchen owns and operates a private practice in Madison, Wisconsin. For 21 years, she has provided developmental, trauma, feeding, and attachment support for tiny humans and their caregivers in birth to three, preschool, private practice, and peer group settings. Gretchen is an international speaker, reflective supervisor, and infant mental health consultant. In these roles, she offers compassionate, experiential, and reflective holding spaces for professionals. She is a proud United States Air Force spouse and mother of three boys.

Indira has been involved in birth and breastfeeding support for the past 15 years. As a clinician IBCLC, she leads the Specialist Breastfeeding Clinic which is part of the Merton Health Visiting team (Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust). This Clinic is for complex breastfeeding dyads and by GP/HV/RM referral only. Indira has been awarded the National Institute for Health Research Fellowship (2021-2022) as part of the ARC NWL Improvement Leadership programme. Her project examines how to offer more skilled breastfeeding and lactation care in the NHS nationally. As an Educator and the lead Lecturer of the Breastfeeding London Course, she has been training future IBCLCs for the past 10 years. Indira's roles as Clinician and Educator have led her to the path of research. As the Director of the Centre for Breastfeeding Education and Research, she has published several articles in leading international peer-reviewed breastfeeding and human lactation journals. She has also served La Leche League Great Britain for the past 13 consecutive years.

Jeanette Mesite Frem, MHS, IBCLC, RLC, CCE is an experienced childbirth educator, IBCLC-lactation consultant and retired birth doula. She started her career working with families while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa in the early 90s. She loved that work so much she went on to receive a public health masters degree from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, focusing her studies on nutrition for maternal and child health. Her two children were breastfed for more than 2 years each and Jeanette has experience pumping at work for both children and has supported more than a thousand families with feeding and pumping over the last 20 years.

Jeanette provides prenatal childbirth and breastfeeding classes at her office in Northborough, Massachusetts, as well as providing virtual and office feeding consultations. She also enjoys leading workshops for perinatal health professionals and mentoring those who work with families. If you have questions, feel free to email [email protected].

Katherine is a Senior Lecturer at School of Sociology, Australian National University. Katherine’s particular areas of interest include the sociology of reproduction and motherhood, perinatal medicine, lactation sciences, human milk banking and donation. Her current projects include an Australian Research Council funded study on maternal experiences of lactation after infant death, and a Mayo Clinic funded research project on the communication with families regarding periviable infant resuscitation.

Kristin is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and IBCLC in private practice in central NJ. Her practice specialties are low supply, maternal and infant mental health, and the intersection of ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender in the care of the new family. She has spoken on various lactation, mental health, and equity topics for USLCA, the Lehigh Valley Breastfeeding Association Conference, the Appalachian Breastfeeding Conference, LPPEC, LC in PP, and for LLL of the Garden State. She designed and taught a training course on Mental Health First Aid for Perinatal Providers. She has been a featured speaker on several lactation related podcasts.

She is the mother of two children who nursed full term despite maternal IGT, and who are now 16 and 13. She is an anti racist LGBT+ activist, a member of transformative works fandoms, and makes fighting for a better world part of her daily life.

Megan Dunn is a board certified Lactation Consultant and Health Educator who views infant feeding from an anthropological perspective and through a sociological lens. Her experiences have run the gamut as a volunteer, peer-to-peer counselor, clinical IBCLC, and as an educator.

Currently she is the Breastfeeding Program Coordinator for a local WIC agency where she is coordinating a pilot program to equitably expand peer services. She is privileged to be a part of the excellent team at Legacy Health as a perinatal Educator. She also provides community lactation support as a home-visiting provider. Her goals are to support biological feeding norms and to offer practical and empowering solutions for dyads. Professionally, her special interests include the fascinating world of our microbiome, empowering parents through Participant Centered and motivational approaches, and creating successful feeding solutions for complex cases. She is eager to collaborate on projects which focus on improving public policy and accessibility to culturally aware and trauma informed care for all perinatal families.

When she’s not pondering and working on all things human milk, Megan enjoys cooking, hanging out with her teenagers, going on nature walks, volunteering, and spinning tunes as a community radio host and DJ.

Melissa Cole is a board-certified lactation consultant, neonatal oral-motor assessment professional and clinical herbalist in private practice. Melissa is passionate about providing comprehensive, holistic lactation support and improving the level of clinical lactation skills for health professional. She enjoys teaching, researching and writing about wellness and lactation-related topics. Her bachelor’s degree is in maternal/child health and lactation and her master’s degree is in therapeutic herbalism. Before pursuing her current path, Melissa’s background was in education and cultural arts, which has served her well in her work as a lactation consultant and healthcare educator. She loves living, working and playing in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her 3 children.

Monica Esparza is currently the Executive Director of the New Mexico Breastfeeding Task Force. She is a trained Certified Lactation Counselor and Community Interpreter who previously served families as a breastfeeding peer counselor for more than 10 years, providing peer-to-peer support to lactating families through the Department of Health Women's, Infant & Children's program both individually and in the hospital setting. She participated as a Leader in the Health Connect One Birth Leadership Academy and the NM Women of Color Leaders in Non-profit. She has served on different boards and currently sits on the National College of Midwifery Board and the New Mexico Certified Nurse Midwives Board. As a Mexican, Immigrant woman living in the south valley of Albuquerque, she brings a grassroots community approach and an equity lens into her every aspect of her work. She understands the importance of centering families and Black, Indigenous and People Of Color as a crucial step into achieve birth equity. She enjoys hiking and gardening with her husband and 2 children.

Rebecca began her lactation journey with her undergraduate senior thesis evaluating a breastfeeding education program. After working as a doula and childbirth educator, she decided to pursue a Master’s in Public Health in Maternal and Child Health. There, she was also in the first class of the Mary Rose Tully Training Initiative, a Pathway 2 IBCLC training program. After graduating, she first worked full time as an IBCLC in a large academic hospital. She then became the Director of Lactation Services at a busy freestanding birth center. After making the move to a new state, she went into private practice part-time, and expanded her focus on a longtime passion: providing education for IBCLCs, lactation trainees, and health care providers. She also has special interests in research, support for the LGBTQ+ community, and coalition-building to advance and support IBCLC services.

Rosann Edwards is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nursing and Health Sciences at the University of New Brunswick Saint John, an experienced front line public health nurse, and lactation consultant. She is also a third-degree karate black belt, and mother of boys. Rosann’s research and community work focuses on breastfeeding, the transition to motherhood, maternal satisfaction with breast/infant feeding, mothering in the shelter system, and empowering vulnerable populations of women and their children. She is the co-editor of the recent Demeter Press Anthology Breasts across Motherhood: Lived Experiences and Critical Examinations.

Zainab Yate is a Biomedical Ethicist, with a specialist interest in infant feeding. Zainab is Vice Chair and named qualitative lead on a paediatric flagged Research Ethics Committee Panel for the Health Research Authority (HRA) in the UK, reviewing research protocols for over a decade. Zainab's previous working background is in Public Health and Commissioning the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. She had also been a volunteer breastfeeding peer supporter with the NHS for a number of years, is the owner-author of the resource site for mothers and healthcare practitioners on Breastfeeding / Nursing Aversion and Agitation and author of "When Breastfeeding Sucks".

Christine Staricka is a Registered, International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant and trained childbirth educator. As the host of The Lactation Training Lab Podcast, her current role focuses on training and coaching current and aspiring lactation care providers. Christine created and developed The First 100 Hours© concept, an early lactation framework designed to support lactation care providers with the knowledge and mindset they need to help families optimize early lactation. Christine worked as a hospital-based IBCLC for 10 years and has over 20 years experience providing clinical lactation care and support. She provides clinical lactation care to families at Baby Café Bakersfield and serves as its Director. Christine recently completed 6 years of service on the Board of the United States Lactation Consultant Association (USLCA.) She holds a Bachelor's Degree from the University of Phoenix. She has been married for 27 years, lives in California, and is the proud mother of 3 amazing daughters.

Anna Le Grange is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, Registered Pediatric Nurse, Mindfulness teacher and Author. She has worked with new families for over 20 years in a variety of clinical roles. Anna brings her passion for psychology, neuroscience and mindfulness into her lactation support work and facilitates other professionals to incorporate emotional well-being tools into their own lactation practice. Mother to 3 children, Anna breastfed her 3rd child following breast reduction surgery and experienced first-hand, the emotional challenges that so often relate to infant feeding complexities. She used her personal experiences alongside mindfulness and lactation knowledge, to create a toolbox of techniques for breastfeeding families, which she includes in her courses and book, The Mindful Breastfeeding Book. Anna believes whole-heartedly in prioritizing calm and connection within our breastfeeding support practices, both for our clients and ourselves. Anna is currently studying for a MSc in Positive Psychology at Buckingham New University and has spoken at various events including the Gold Lactation, ILactation Conference and Nurturing The Future.

Mary Ryngaert is a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner since 1987 and an International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant since 2000. She received her MSN in the Primary Care of Children at Catholic University in Washington, DC. In her clinic at the University of Florida, she sees families for breastfeeding issues for the duration of the breastfeeding journey and provides education for pediatric residents. She is active in the local breastfeeding coalition and serves as a consultant/coordinator for the hospital Baby Friendly program. She has a special interest in supporting the development of peer counselors, especially women of color, to provide breastfeeding support within the community. She served as the Chair for the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP) Breastfeeding Special Interest Group for six years and is a delegate to the US Breastfeeding Committee for NAPNAP . She was a co-author for the 2018 update to the NAPNAP Position Statement on Breastfeeding.

Shel works part time for the NHS in northwest England, and has four adolescents.

In addition to this, she runs a small private IBCLC practice specialising in the unsettled baby, those with faltering weight and those who are formula fed, and also holds a variety of consultant and trustee roles in various national and international organisations for advocacy and education around infant feeding; these include being Clinical Director for the breastfeeding support app AnyaHealth, being co-chair of Nursing Matters, an advocacy organisation for the breastfed infant, and being vice-chair of the UK Association for Milk Banking.

Shel has been on the development committee for 3 NICE guidelines including one on Faltering Growth, has co-authored 3 Cochrane systematic reviews, and written a book “Why Infant Formula Feeding Matters” (2022). In 2021 Shel began work towards a PhD in further understanding how best to support families with unsettled babies in universal services, which she conducts part time alongside her other commitments.

She teaches in person and online, both in her NHS role and in the consultant roles, and thoroughly enjoys sharing the knowledge she has acquired to improve the experience of families everywhere.

Lyndsey is an experienced paediatric nurse, children’s public health nurse, International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, Holistic Sleep Coach, researcher and responsive parenting advocate. She has worked in hospitals, clinics, the community and within clients’ homes for 20 years, serving within the UK NHS, in private practice and voluntarily.
The co-founder and clinical director of the Holistic Sleep Coaching program, Lyndsey regularly teaches internationally, as well as providing mentorship for newer sleep coaches. She is passionate about responsive feeding, gentle parenting and promoting parental confidence and well-being.
With Professor Amy Brown, she is the co-founder of Thought Rebellion – an education and publishing company seeking to inspire, challenge and equip professionals and writers in the parenting, lactation and perinatal space with an evidence based revolution.
Lyndsey is currently a PhD researcher at Swansea University, exploring the needs and challenges of medically complex breastfed infants and children. In 2019 she set up the Breastfeeding the Brave project to raise awareness of the unique breastfeeding needs of chronically, critically, and terminally ill children in the paediatric setting. The mother of a childhood cancer survivor, she often talks about the impact of chronic serious illness on families, and seeks to support other families living through a serious childhood illness.
Lyndsey is a respected international speaker and teacher, and regularly speaks out against the dominant sleep training culture, as well as advocating for the rights of families to receive high-quality, compassionate and expert support. She is the author of Holistic Sleep Coaching (2018), Let’s talk about your new family’s sleep (2020), Still Awake (2021), Breastfeeding the Brave (2022) and co-author of The Writing Book (2022).

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.

Carmela is a family medicine MD, bachelor´s degree in Public Health Education, and IBCLC since 2005. She is also a BFHI Evaluator and the co founder and past president of the Spanish Lactation Consultant Association (AECCLM). She works in a private Family Wellness Clinic, Raices, as person in charge of the lactation program, which includes two IBCLCs attending breastfeeding families and an extensive offer of breastfeeding training for health care professionals and breastfeeding peer counsellors. The team has trained over three thousand doctors, midwives and nurses from both the Spanish National Health Service and the private sector in Spain. She is a frequent lecturer at national conferences, and has also lectured internationally, both on-site and online. She is the author of several scientific papers on breast pain, mastitis and tongue tie. She is also the author of a breastfeeding/parenting book, “Amar con los Brazos Abiertos” (To Love with Open Arms). She is married to Carlos and they homeschool their four children.

Allison Tolman has experience as an LPN, CLC, Certified Birth Doula, Certified Childbirth Educator, and IBCLC. She has found a passion for breast pumps and now works exclusively with mothers who are combining breastfeeding and pumping while returning to work after maternity leave. She (along with an engineer) developed a device used to test breast pumps and has enjoyed sharing her data and findings with her online community and helping mothers choose and use the best breast pump for them. Her husband is active duty military in the US Army and together they have 3 little boys. They have lived all over the US and spent 3 wonderful years in Belgium. She is also pursuing a bachelors in Maternal Child Health: Human Lactation at Union Institute & University.

Annette Leary is a registered nurse with over 33 years of experience working in Maternal Child Health (pediatrics, postpartum, home health care and level 2 NICU). She became an IBCLC in 1995. She owns a private practice providing office, in home, and virtual visits at Orlando Lactation and Wellness. In 2022 she formed a collaborative company Baby B.L.I.S.S. : Central Florida Feeding Collaborative where she and her business partners help families prenatally, antepartum and post partum navigate the growth, development and feeding journey of their children. She began her craniosacral therapy training through the Upledger Institute in 2015, taking advanced maternal and pediatric specialty classes. Annette has found great improvement incorporating craniosacral therapy techniques with lactation consulting. Helping Families Latch onto Parenting has always been her mantra.