Ethics for Lactation Professionals Online Course(s) & Continuing Education

Robyn Lee is an Assistant Professor in Sociology at the University of Alberta. Previously, she was visiting scholar at the Brocher Foundation (Geneva, Switzerland) and a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at Brock University. She holds a PhD in Social and Political Thought from York University. Her research interests include contemporary social theory, gender, sexuality, care work, and embodiment. She is the author of The Ethics and Politics of Breastfeeding: Power, Pleasure, Poetics, published by University of Toronto Press (2018) and has published articles in journals including Feminist Theory, Hypatia, Gender, Work, and Organization, and Family Theory and Review.

Pauline Sakamoto's nursing career in milk banking started as a volunteer donor to the Mothers’ Milk Bank in San Jose 35 years ago. Previously, she worked at the County Health Department of San Bernardino as a Public Health Nurse in the largest county in the US covering the Hi Desert. She was also employed by the CA State Department of Health, Fiscal Intermediary Management Division for Medi-Cal. Her experience with the nonprofit San Jose Milk Bank for 35 years included processing and operations, the screening of donors and dispensing of donor human milk for inpatient and outpatient services, administration of the San Jose Mothers’ Milk Bank for over 20 years and concurrently leadership roles in the Human Milk Banking Association of North America. Currently, she serves on multiple committees within HMBANA regarding policies and standards, auditing member banks, and reviews legislative and state statutes on milk banking and lactation. She has been representing HMBANA at the US Breastfeeding Committee for over 9 years and served on the Board of USBC for 6 years. Internationally, in 2012-14, she served on PATH’s Milk Banking Policy Group and continues to work internationally on issues on processing and safety. She has stepped down from the Executive Director position at the Milk Bank in 2019 but continue to pursue her passion on milk banking (half time in the office) and Lactation.

Professor Lisa Amir is a general practitioner and has been an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant since 1989. She is the author of over 120 peer-reviewed articles on breastfeeding. She works in breastfeeding medicine at The Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. She is a Principal Research Fellow at Judith Lumley Centre, La Trobe University and is the Editor-in-Chief of the open access journal, International Breastfeeding Journal.

Indra Lusero is founder of Elephant Circle and the Birth Rights Bar Association. As a Queer, Genderqueer, Latinx parent rooted in the Rocky Mountain West, Indra is attuned to the importance of people on the margins and our role in leading the dismantling of oppressive systems to build a more equitable world. Indra helped pass legislation in Colorado to eliminate the shackling of incarcerated women during pregnancy and birth, to improve midwifery and birth center regulations, and to create more humane policies for families impacted by substance use. Indra also spearheaded the creation of "Birth Rights: A resource for everyday people to defend human rights during labor and birth.

For over 25 years Sonya Boersma has supported best practice, working with mothers and babies, as well as professionals. She delivers a calm and informative consult to a diversity of clients and situations. For her it's an honour to work with new, new-again, or soon-to-be parents, tailoring care to each.

Sonya also has a broad range of experiences supporting health care professionals to provide infant feeding evidence-based care. She has been instrumental in developing resources regionally and provincially. As a provincial Health Promotion Consultant, Sonya assisted health care organizations like hospitals to progress in implementing the WHO's Baby-Friendly Initiative. She was the coordinator of provincial breastfeeding protocols, including Informed Decision Making: Infant Feeding and facilitated IDM and other workshops around the province for a variety of health care professionals.

As an IBCLC and Registered Nurse in various roles such as public health, northern nursing in Yukon Territory, Canada, as a birth doula, and as an independent Lactation Consultant, she has been fortunate to work with parents in the whole childbirth continuum.

In her spare time, she's likely outside hiking, cycling, or cross-country skiing or being with family.

Michelle Pensa Branco MPH IBCLC is a lactation consultant and public health advocate. In addition to her clinical practice, which has included in-hospital, outpatient and private practice settings, she advocates for improved maternal-child health practices at the local, national and global level. She has a particular interest in the impact of trauma to breastfeeding families, models of peer support to improve breastfeeding outcomes and the application of health communication principles to the promotion and protection of breastfeeding. Michelle serves as the Director of Peer Support Programs and provides clinical lactation expertise for Nurture Project International, the only international NGO focused exclusively on infant feeding in emergencies. With Jodine Chase, she co-founded a Canadian non-profit organization, SafelyFed Canada. She is also an active member of the Ontario Public Health Association’s Breastfeeding Promotion Working Group. Michelle has previously served as the Vice-Chair of La Leche League Canada, the Communications Director for the Canadian Lactation Consultants Association as well as the Toronto Coordinator of INFACT Canada. When she is not travelling for work, Michelle stays close to home, living with her family just outside Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Jessica Lee is a Staff Attorney at the Center for WorkLife Law, and co-founder of the Center’s Nursing Mothers Law Project. She works to advance gender equality in the workplace and in education, and is a nationally recognized expert on discrimination related to pregnancy and breastfeeding. Lee has provided know-your-rights resources and training on workplace supports for breastfeeding to thousands of healthcare providers, public health practitioners, and employers. She also seeks to prevent discrimination by working with institutions to draft and implement family-responsive policies.

Lee’s writing has been featured in publications ranging from Harvard Business Review and The Chronicle of Higher Education to the journals Breastfeeding Medicine and Midwifery and Women’s Health. She is a co-author of the study, Exposed: Discrimination Against Breastfeeding Workers.

Barbara D. Robertson, IBCLC, has been involved in education for over 34 years. She received a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education in 1988 and her Master’s in Education in 1995. Barbara left teaching elementary students in 1995 to raise her two children. Barbara is now the Director of The Breastfeeding Center of Ann Arbor and of the brand new business LactaLearning.

The Breastfeeding Center of Ann Arbor will still continue to serve breast/chestfeeding families and now LactaLearning will be dedicated to all of Barbara’s professional lactation trainings. Barbara has developed two 95 hour professional lactation training, a group training and a completely self study training with Nancy Mohrbacher. Barbara’s idea of creating professional book groups has exploded with her hosting Making More Milk with Lisa Marasco, Supporting Sucking Skills with Cathy Watson Genna, Breastfeeding Answers, 2nd Edition with Nancy Mohrbacher, and new for the fall, Safe Infant Sleep with Dr. James McKenna. Barbara will be hosting a one day online conference in the fall with Lisa Marasco and Cathy Watson Genna using all of her tech savvy skills to make this a one of a kind experience. Barbara is also a speaker for hire on a wide variety of topics including Motivational Interviewing. Barbara volunteered for the United States Lactation Consultation Association as the Director of Professional Development for 4.5 years.

She just retired as Associate Editor for Clinical Lactation, a journal she helped create for USLCA. Barbara has free podcasts, a blog, and Youtube videos which can all be found on her websites lactalearning.com and bfcaa.com. She has written many articles as well. She loves working with parents and babies, helping them with breast/chestfeeding problems in whatever way she can.

Erika Dudley is a Private Practice IBCLC and owns Enriched Lactation based out of Indiana. She has professionally supported lactating families for over 4 years from prenatal through toddlerhood. Erika's goal is to empower parents to understand there is value in their effort and action of providing breastmilk to their little ones. She educates tailored to a family's goal and it is done with the intention to display the value of lactation support as a whole that ideally serves as a ripple effect to future care. Erika is also the creator and host of the Leveling Up in Lactation podcast. It is a passion project that highlights, amplifies, and documents the journeys of Black Lactation Professionals.

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".