Lactation and Adversity: Addressing Challenges with Confidence Lecture Pack

Anna is an IBCLC in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They started their work in the lactation field as a La Leche League Leader in 2015 and achieved board certification in 2018. Her three years with La Leche League included a two-year position as Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Administrator of LLL of Minnesota and Dakotas. Anna has worked with the Twin Cities' Queer Birth Project and currently serves as IBCLC for St. Paul- Ramsey County WIC and Baby Cafe. She holds a BA in Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies from the University of Minnesota, and works to break down barriers to lactation support and create space in the intersections of gender, sexuality, anti-racism, self healing, social and environmental justice, and natural infant feeding. She has presented for the Breastfeeding and Feminism International Conference, iLactation, La Leche League, the Twin Cities Birth and Baby Expo, and the Minnesota Department of Health. Anna holds down a homestead where she raises two kids and a bunch of animals and makes art. Find her at annabrauchlactationsupport.weebly.com.

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".

Elizabeth began her career in maternal health in 2000 after earning a Master of Public Health with an emphasis in maternal child nutrition. She accepted a job teaching childbirth education at the University of Utah Hospital and taught for two years before being promoted to the coordinator of that department.

When the hospital decided to begin the journey to become Baby Friendly, Elizabeth was asked to be on that committee and eventually was asked to be the Baby Friendly Coordinator. During this process, it was a natural step for her to earn her IBCLC. Recently Elizabeth was promoted to the manager of the lactation inpatient team in addition to her other responsibilities.

An advocate for maternal health in all areas, Elizabeth serves as the board chair and founding board member for the Mountain West Mothers' Milk Bank. She is the president elect for the International Childbirth Education Association, and the secretary for PSI-Utah. She sits on the University of Utah Perinatal Bereavement Committee, Discharge Quality Committee, and have served on multiple other committees over the years.

She has been married for over thirty years and is the mom of three children. She still has time to pursue other passions such as singing, gardening, exercising, and spending time with her friends and family.

In non-covid times, she can be found on Friday nights calling Bingo for her church and volunteering in other capacities.

Kim is born for Naakaii Diné (Mexican People) and from Tsi’naajinii (Black Streak People) clans. Born in Tuba City, maternally from Tolani Lake, AZ located in the southwestern area of the Navajo Nation. Growing up on and off the Navajo Nation, and residing in various tribal communities throughout her life, Kim is passionate about utilizing her education and experience to promote healthy living through kinship values.

Kim is a International Board Certified Lactation Consultant and has over 10 years of experience in peer-counseling, clinical and educational lactation. Kim’s work has been inclusive of Tribal and culturally diverse communities serving the needs of prenatal, newborns, and post-partum mothers and families. She is a Co-Instructor for the Indigenous Breastfeeding Counselor training course providing cultural breastfeeding and clinical education to those that can serve their community throughout Turtle Island. She also independently consults with Changing Woman Initiative out of New Mexico, a free access birth center serving Indigenous women to reproductive wellness. She is serving her second term on the United States Breastfeeding Committee Board of Directors. Currently, Kim continues to work at Valley Wise Health Medical Center as a Hospital lactation consultant for eight years and is serving the front lines assisting families and COVID mothers during the pandemic with breastfeeding and hospital policies. She also implemented the first Arizona Lactation Mentorship Pilot Program at Valleywise Hospital mentoring two student interns. This allows access to clinical hours to create strategic initiatives to bring BIPOC diversity, equity and inclusion to the field of lactation.

Currently a member of the Advisory Council Committee for the Navajo Nation Breastfeeding Coalition; she will the Urban Dine’ Community Representative for the Phoenix area. This new role will include breastfeeding home visits and telehealth lactation support serving the urban and telehealth rural BIPOC community. She recently collaborated with Wellness Within Reach also providing breastfeeding education and one on one breastfeeding support. Kim's extensive experience in this field has led to opportunities in consulting, which along with her husband synthesized their consulting business in Tribal Indemnity. Within three years, Tribal Indemnity has assumed responsibility of complex projects and strategic planning with one of the largest Tribes in Arizona. She recently established her own small business, Indigenous Breastfeeding Az, dba.

Kim enjoys spending time with her husband of twenty-three years and three daughters of whom she breastfed until they were 2 years old. She also loves early morning runs, hiking, boxing and yoga.

Emily Taylor is nationally recognized for leading hospital transformations to advance health, happiness and equity in communities impacted by structural oppression.

As Founder and Director of WISE (Women-Inspired Systems’ Enrichment), Emily currently leads Perinatal Care Quality Improvement Collaboratives throughout the United States. The collaboratives feature equity and social justice, action-oriented knowledge and skill-building, community engagement, and advanced leadership development.

Emily serves as Chair of the United States Breastfeeding Committee – a coalition of more than 100 organizations that collaboratively drive efforts for policy and practices that create a landscape of breastfeeding support across the United States.

Prior to founding WISE, Emily was Deputy Director of the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute. There, she directed the National Collaborative for Advancing the Ten Steps and other collaborative programs. She also conducted myriad research studies resulting in publication on influence of infant formula marketing, implementation of the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative, access to donor human milk in the United States, child sexual abuse survivors’ experiences with breastfeeding, and organizational readiness to change.

Emily is currently pursuing her doctorate in Public Health Leadership at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the same school from which she earned her Master of Public Health from in 2007. She completed the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Improvement Advisor Professional Development Program in 2012, and Tamarack Institute’s “Champions for Change: Leading a Backbone Organization for Collective Impact” in 2013.

Her experience as a certified childbirth doula and Lamaze educator and her identity as a woman, feminist, sister, advocate, and equity accomplice continue to inform her work.

Nikki started as an LPN in 1971, got her RN and BSN, and a graduate degree. She is an author, a teacher, a holistic lactation consultant, a craniosacral therapy practitioner, and a baby body worker (teaching Infant Massage and TummyTime! She is mother to 2 wonderful (breastfed for a long time) daughters, wife to 3 interesting men, only one of whom was the right one for the past 37 years, Rafe!

Her publications include the books, Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Breastfeeding Therapy and A Breastfeeding Owner’s Manual; the monographs, “Benefits of Breastfeeding and Their Economic Impact” and “Sexuality and Breastfeeding” and the educational pamphlet “How to help yourself through labor”. She has been the reviews editor for the journal Clinical Lactation, and has worked as the lactation consultant for the division of Maternal, Child, and Family Health at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health since 2006.