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

Research ethics institutions protect the rights, safety, dignity, and well-being of research participants, and also have a duty to ensure ‘good’ research. Conducting poor research is unethical, and there are many studies in the field of breastfeeding and lactation that have been challenged when published, simply because their findings and results are, at best, incorrect. Proper definitions, project design and industry conflict of interest are important factors, and these can be critiqued and challenged at the ethical review stage.

Participants will learn how to use the method of the '4 Ds of a Brief Assessment' to scrutinise the research questions, definitions of words used, disclosures and even the research methodology to decide if a study will have both scientific and ethical merit in the field of breastfeeding and lactation. If you are a donor, an applicant, a manager or a researcher you need to be aware of the process of ethical review of research protocols, the possibility of specialist review, and also of how to sift through published studies that have questionable study designs, and the findings.

In this session, Professor Noel-Weiss explains and defines bioethics, principles of bioethics, and ethical dilemmas. She presents results from her research study about IBCLCs and ethical dilemmas and uses case studies to demonstrate how to identify and resolve ethical dilemmas.

Many parents in Global North countries identify breastfeeding outside of the home as a particular challenge, and this can lead to stopping breastfeeding earlier than intended. However, there are often legal protections available. In order to better understand this complicated landscape, I will present a summary of the 71 research studies published on this between 2007-2021. Current barriers to mothers being able to breastfeed in public spaces will be described in relation to the legal system, structural inequality and intersectionality, knowledge leading to incorrect beliefs among the public, and a hostile social environment. Within this context it is completely rational for parents to feel a range of negative responses, which lead to them feeling unsafe to breastfeed. Building on this evidence, I present a range of ways in which you may be able to have a positive impact on the environment around the mothers you support.

As healthcare providers incorporate technological solutions into their practices, they also face the increasingly complex task of protecting the privacy of their patients/clients. Some countries have laws in place that healthcare providers need to understand and follow, but all healthcare providers regardless of practice setting have an ethical responsibility to maintain rigorous standards when it comes to digital privacy.

Because technology changes so rapidly, keeping up-to-date with privacy regulations proves challenging for both large institutions and solo practitioners. Lactation must also be concerned with the privacy of more than one entity while serving a patient base that may have already faced numerous privacy and consent violations during pregnancy and childbirth. By valuing the privacy of lactating persons and their children, legal, ethical, and moral obligations can be met, enhancing client/patient autonomy and improving self-efficacy.

This session provides a framework for understanding digital privacy and privacy threats, and offers resources for implementing policies and procedures that protect patient/client privacy.

Writing policy is a skillset needed throughout the lactation profession as the lactation care provider often serves as both clinician and advocate. As an author of 2 breastfeeding policies, including a promotion policy for the City of Philadelphia Department of Public Health in 1992 and 10 Steps to a Breastfeeding-friendly Shelter in 2019, Nikki will give some historical background for breastfeeding policy and offer guidance about how to formulate a policy, what is important in writing policy, and make the process easier to work through and less intimidating.

It's all about the Internet! Families in 2015 want to be connected to their network of families and friends. They use Internet-accessing devices and social media to share news, gather information and seek opinions. If this is where families are ... can an IBCLC (or other healthcare provider) be there, too, without violating long-standing principles of privacy and professional ethics? Can healthcare providers engage in clinical discussion with someone on Facebook, Twitter, a chat room or a website? What about real-time webinars, or static websites, where mothers type in their clinical questions? Is texting ever permissible? Can a clinician post a picture of a client, or ask colleagues on a private listserv about a tricky case? We'll learn how the Internet is used by new families to seek and share information, and the professional risks of "friendly" clinical care by the IBCLC or HCP who joins the conversation.

Anecdotal evidence of the perception of pressure surrounding infant feeding decisions is easy to acquire simply by talking to new mothers. Several sociological studies report an association between decisions to formula feed and feelings of guilt, blame and failure. I connect perceived pressure regarding infant feeding decisions to a mistaken assumption that if breastfeeding benefits the child, the mother must have a defeasible duty to breastfeed. I call this the Duty Mistake. I show how the Duty Mistake contributes to guilt and shame surrounding the use of formula. It also produces what I call “the Justification Trap”: in a moralized context, requests for information or offers of support are perceived as calls for justification. This makes it much harder to ensure that women are given the support and information they need to meet their feeding goals. This presentation provides an overview of the issues and looks at how they impact the ethical responsibility of lactation professionals to promote and support breastfeeding.