Lactation / Breastfeeding Continuing Education Bundle #8 (32.5 Hours)

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.

Katrien Nauwelaerts graduated as a prehistoric archaeologist in 2005. She's the mother of three breastfed children and the administrator of the Dutch breastfeeding-website Borstvoeding Aardig, https://borstvoeding.aardig.be. Katrien worked as a volunteer breastfeeding-counsellor, provincial coordinator and training manager for the Belgian breastfeeding organisation Borstvoeding vzw between 2010-2014. Up tot 2018 she was the founder and president of Aardig Leven vzw, a non profit ecological organisation. In 2013 she became an IBCLC. Since 2013 she's working as a lactation consultant at her own private practice Borstvoeding Aardig. She became a nutritionist and a herborist in 2014. Katrien shares her experiences and knowledge on lactation consulting as a public speaker since 2014.

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.

Jo Gilpin is a Registered Nurse, Midwife and has worked for many years as a Child Health Nurse with the Child and Family Health Service in South Australia (CaFHS). During this time she completed a Graduate Diploma in Health Counselling. She also studied Infant Mental Health at the University of South Australia. She became an IBCLC in 1996.
Her passion throughout has been educating, encouraging and supporting parents to have successful, enjoyable, breastfeeding relationships with their babies. This has been the main focus of her work.
She has worked privately as a Lactation Consultant since 2005. She has published two books, both on breastfeeding. Her most recent is 'Brilliant Breastfeeding: A Sensible Guide'. This was published in October 2018. This book aims to sensitively guide parents and future parents towards fulfilling breastfeeding relationships with up-to-date, evidence-based information. Attention is paid to the many challenges that parents face.
Jo loves what she does and never considers it 'work'. She lives with her husband on Kangaroo Island, which is just off the southern coast of South Australia. Her children and five grandchildren live in Sydney and Brisbane.

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.

Chauntel Norris is a native of Birmingham, AL. She attended the University of Alabama at Birmingham where she earned her B.A. in African American Studies & her B.S. in Psychology.
Chauntel is a DONA trained Birth & Post-Partum Doula, a Lamaze trained Childbirth Educator and a Certified Lactation Counselor. She is the Co-founder of Baobab Birth Collective and currently serves as the Mother's Milk Initiative Coordinator for the Alabama Prison Birth Project.
Chauntel is the mother of two brilliant children Amaiya and Ozell.

Wilai Rojjanasrirat, PhD, RN, IBCLC, FILCA, FAAN is a Professor and Director of Research and Scholarship at Graceland University’s School of Nursing in Independence, Missouri. Her background is in midwifery and maternal and child health nursing.

She is an international board certified lactation consultant. She earned her Bachelor’s in Nursing and Midwifery from Thailand and Master’s and Doctorate and Post-Doctorate in Nursing from the University of Kansas. She teaches in graduate nursing program. Her research focuses on promoting and supporting breastfeeding, psychometric development, and educational outcome evaluation.

Using telehealth in providing lactation support, evaluation of the breastfeeding outcomes among late-preterm, near term, and term infants, and evaluation of the Business Case for Breastfeeding Program’s impact among employed breastfeeding mothers in Kansas are among some of the research projects.

Dr. Rojjanasrirat has multiple publications and recently contributed to a book chapter on Employment and Breastfeeding in Wambach & Spencer, Breastfeeding and Human Lactation, 6th edition in 2021. She served as a former president of the Pi Eta Chapter of the Nursing Honor Society, a board member of the KC Board of Directors of Kansas City, Kansas, and a former president of the Greater Kansas City Lactation Consultant Association for several years.

Carlos González was born in Zaragoza, Spain, in 1960. He is married and is the father of three children. In 1983 he graduated in medicine at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and between 1984 and 1987 he studied pediatrics at the Hospital of Sant Joan de Déu in that city.
He is founder and president of ACPAM (Catalan Association for Breastfeeding) since 1991. Since this association he has directed and taught in more than 100 courses on breastfeeding for health professionals. He is the author of several books, including My child won’t eat, Kiss me!, and Breastfeeding made easy. He has lectured for professionals or general public in Germany, Andorra, Argentina, Austria, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Spain, United States, France, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, United Kingdom, Dominican Republic, Russia, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Since 1994, he has been a regular contributor to Ser Padres magazine , where he attends a nursing and child feeding office. He has also collaborated with other publications, such as the magazine Tu Baby, Mente Sana, Lecturas, the disappeared Solaica and the newspaper in Catalan Ara.

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.

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.

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.

Sejal is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) in private practice and an infant massage educator in Hillsboro, Oregon, USA. She combines her professional expertise with her personal instincts as a mother and a supportive team member.
She holds a Bachelors in Microbiology and Clinical Laboratory Science.
She also brings with her the following comprehensive toolkit: Certified Educator of Infant Massage, Formerly Certified in skin-to-skin care for full term infants from the United States Institute of Kangaroo Care Certified Provider of Innate Postpartum Care.
She has presented nationally and internationally for GOLD lactation, ILCA, community colleges, local lactation organizations.
As a lactation consultant, she believes that every individual needs to be educated about breast health, optimal infant feeding and how breastfeeding support is a basic human right and can impact world health globally.
She strives to help each family by continuing to learn all she can about breast health, breastfeeding ecology, breastfeeding movement and parent-infant connection using the neurobiological and infant mental health lens.
When she’s not with her clients, you can find her at home in Hillsboro, Oregon, USA, listening to bollywood music, hanging out with friends and spending time with her family.

Sonia Semenic is an Associate Professor at the Ingram School of Nursing, McGill University (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) and a Nurse Scientist at the McGill University Health Center. After many years of experience as an IBCLC and Clinical Nurse Specialist in maternal-child health, Sonia completed a PhD in Nursing and postdoctoral training in community health. Her research aims to better understand the process of knowledge translation (KT) in perinatal health, with a particular focus on the implementation of evidence-based practices to protect, promote and support breastfeeding. She currently co-leads the Knowledge Translation Platform for the Quebec Nursing Intervention Research Network, and teaches graduate courses on knowledge translation in nursing practice.

Tomoko Seo is a pediatrician and IBCLC in Japan, working in a private clinic with colleagues including IBCLCs who practice's general pediatrics and breastfeeding medicine. She became certified as an IBCLC in 1999 and recertified in 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019. She is a member of the Japanese Association of Lactation Consultants (JALC) since 1999, when it was founded. JALC has been holding conferences several times a year, including the “Annual Breastfeeding Seminar for Physicians” since 2005 to provide breastfeeding education to physicians and improve breastfeeding support among physicians. Tomko has been a member of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (ABM) since 1999. She is also an active member of the International, Protocol, Education, Conference, Membership Committees of ABM.

In 2014, Ghanaian-American mother and photographer, Vanessa Simmons authored the Normalize Breastfeeding™ movement to address the taboo of public breastfeeding in modern society. Her mission was to document diverse variations of normal infant feeding, across cultures and delivery methods of human milk.
Through Simmons' viral blog, her photographic speaking tour, philanthropy, and artistic inspiration; she mobilized and motivated thousands of women to share their breastfeeding photos on social media. After a very successful first year, she reached out to the Mayor of San Diego to proclaim June 27th the International Day to Normalize Breastfeeding, in support of the worldwide anniversary event!
Lactation educator and activist, Vanessa Simmons, is now speaking out at conferences and events across the country to eliminate general miseducation around the topic. On the Normalize Breastfeeding podcast, she interviews guests about experiences, advocacy, and activism within the infant feeding community worldwide.
As a public speaker, Simmons is focused on transforming the modern mindset around the natural, yet difficult task of breastfeeding. Vanessa trains lactation professionals to better understand and connect with millennial families online. She creatively motivates and inspires families to be mindful that this is a time to be cherished, and although fleeting, it is also a time to reinvent what will be acceptable for feeding generations of the future.
Simmons is an aspiring author and resides with her supportive husband and three children in San Diego, CA.

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.

Mona Liza Hamlin, MSN, RN, IBCLC is the nurse manager of Perinatal Resources and Community Programs for the Women & Children’s Service Line at Christiana Care Hospital in Newark, Delaware. Her role consists of improving both inpatient and outpatient programs that focus on reaching the triple AIM, and improving health equity in the state of Delaware. Hamlin serves as Past-Chair to the United States Breastfeeding Committee (USBC). The USBC is a coalition of more than 50 organizations that support its mission to drive collaborative efforts for policy and practices that create a landscape of breastfeeding support across the United States.
She is a founding member of the National Association of Professional & Peer Lactation Supporters of Color (NAPPLSC), an organization aimed at addressing breastfeeding disparities and improving breastfeeding
amongst families of color. Hamlin also serves as a member of the Delaware Healthy Mother & Infant Consortium and is a board member
for the Breastfeeding Coalition of Delaware. Her fundamental
belief is that equitable access and high quality care are provided to all women and families, especially those most vulnerable to lack of access and systemic barriers to care. Fueled by her professional and personal experiences and passions, Hamlin strives to ensure that all mothers have access to a full scope of perinatal care, support and resources.

Paulina Erices 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.

In 2014, Ghanaian-American mother and photographer, Vanessa Simmons authored the Normalize Breastfeeding™ movement to address the taboo of public breastfeeding in modern society. Her mission was to document diverse variations of normal infant feeding, across cultures and delivery methods of human milk. Through Simmons' viral blog, her photographic speaking tour, philanthropy, and artistic inspiration; she mobilized and motivated thousands of women to share their breastfeeding photos on social media. After a very successful first year, she reached out to the Mayor of San Diego to proclaim June 27th the International Day to Normalize Breastfeeding, in support of the worldwide anniversary event! Lactation educator and activist, Vanessa Simmons, is now speaking out at conferences and events across the country to eliminate general miseducation around the topic. On the Normalize Breastfeeding podcast, she interviews guests about experiences, advocacy, and activism within the infant feeding community worldwide. As a public speaker, Simmons is focused on transforming the modern mindset around the natural, yet difficult task of breastfeeding. Vanessa trains lactation professionals to better understand and connect with millennial families online. She creatively motivates and inspires families to be mindful that this is a time to be cherished, and although fleeting, it is also a time to reinvent what will be acceptable for feeding generations of the future. Simmons is an aspiring author and resides with her supportive husband and three children in San Diego, CA.

Lucy Ruddle is an IBCLC in the UK. She has a thriving private Practice on the South Coast and a busy Facebook page known for it's funny, relevant, and informative memes about breastfeeding and parenting. Lucy qualified in 2018 after 5 years of volunteering as a peer supporter and later as a breastfeeding counselor for a national breastfeeding helpline. She has written a book on relactation, called "Relactation - A guide to rebuilding your milk supply." which was published by Praeclarus Press in January 2020. Lucy's interest in relactation started after she went through the process herself for her eldest baby, and her drive to qualify as an IBCLC came from a second challenging breastfeeding journey with her younger son who was unable to latch for several months. Aside from lactation, Lucy holds a diploma in Child Psychology and worked for 15 years in early years settings, both with the children and in roles supporting parents. She prides herself on her listening focused approach to lactation support, and sees it as the key to good practice in her own work.

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.

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.

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.

Christy Jo has over 25 years of teaching experience. She is passionate about teaching in ways that simplify learning. She has been awarded the United States Presidential Volunteer Award for her community service, the Phyllis Klaus Founder's Award for her contribution to the Mother/Baby bond and the Above and Beyond Award for innovative projects that exemplify the mission of Public Health. She has also been named Lactation Educator Faculty of the Year from Childbirth and Postpartum Professionals Association and earned their Visionary Award in 2015. Christy Jo is the author of Mommy Feeds Baby and co-author of Making Milk. She created the Grow Our Own Lactation Consultant/IBCLC Prep Course which has been used to train hundreds of students to become Lactation Consultants. She currently resides in California with her husband and three children. She continues to serve her community as a birth doula, Private Practice IBCLC, Health Educator for Public Health, and faculty for the CAPPA CLE© and Childbirth Educator Programs.