IBCLC Detailed Content Outline: Clinical Skills Focused CERPs - Section VII

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.

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.

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.

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”.

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.

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.

Joy MacTavish, MA, IBCLC, RLC is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant and certified Holistic Sleep Coach focusing on the intersections of infant feeding, sleep, and family well-being. Through her business, Sound Beginnings, she provides compassionate and evidence-based support to families in the greater Seattle area, and virtually everywhere else. She entered the perinatal field in 2007 as birth and postpartum doula, and childbirth and parenting educator. Joy holds a Master of Arts in Cultural Studies, graduate certificate in Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies, and two Bachelors degrees from the University of Washington. She enjoys combining her academic background, analytical skills, and passion for social justice into her personal and professional endeavors. Joy serves as an Advisory Committee Member and guest speaker for the GOLD Lactation Academy. When not working or learning, she can be found homeschooling, building LEGO with her children, or dreaming up her next big adventure.

Sarah Coutts is a registered nurse and lactation consultant with over 10 years experience in the neonatal intensive care unit. She currently is working as a Developmental Care Specialist in a NICU in Vancouver, Canada. Previous to this position Sarah was the Kangaroo Care Coordinator of an implementation science study to improve uptake of Kangaroo Care in NICUs in British Columbia. She is part of team of clinicians and researchers interested in understanding the barriers and enablers to Kangaroo Care from both the healthcare provider and parent perspectives and creating innovative strategies to increase knowledge and practice of Kangaroo Care in the NICU. She is passionate about raising awareness of the positive outcomes of zero separation between preterm and sick infants and their parents in the NICU.

Andini has bachelor and master degree in public health, majoring in hospital administration. She is an IBCLC and is currently undertaking PhD at the Australian National University. Her PhD thesis is looking at the facilitator and barrier of Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative implementation and accreditation in Indonesia and Australia. One part of her PhD was measuring its social value using Social Return on Investment.

Her journey began when she was pregnant with her first child, then found and attended full series of Indonesian Breastfeeding Mothers Association (AIMI)'s breastfeeding classes. She then decided to volunteered as breastfeeding counselor at AIMI.

With her work experience in hospital management consulting for 8 years and personal experience when her breastfed son undertook open heart surgery, she realized that not every hospitals provide adequate education and support for breastfeeding mother, either since pregnancy, during and after birth.

Andini was awarded Deeble Summer Research Scholarship from Deeble Institute for Health Policy Research Scholarship Program of Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association (AHHA) in 2020 and published a Health Policy Issues Brief titled "Improving the Uptake of the Baby Friendly Health Initiative in Australian Hospitals" as the outcome. Thanks to her supervisor, Andini involved in working group for Breastfeeding Friendly Workplace Accreditation at ANU in 2018-2019 and involve in WBTi Australia since 2019. Currently living in Canberra Australia, Andini has been providing breastfeeding education and assistance for Indonesian mother-student, students' wives or any Indonesian women who live in Canberra.

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.