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

Associate Professor Luke Grzeskowiak is a clinical pharmacist and Practitioner Fellow in the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University and the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute, Australia. He is passionate about improving health outcomes for mothers and babies through the development and promotion of more effective and safer approaches towards medicines use. Luke has been undertaken research involving the use of domperidone for 10-years. He is currently the lead investigator on a number of projects examining the use of domperidone to increase breast milk supply in clinical practice, predictors of treatment response to domperidone, and causes of low breast milk supply. He is also the lead investigator on a large clinical trial comparing the effects of different doses of domperidone in the treatment of lactation insufficiency. He has published widely on the topic of treatment for low breast milk supply, with many of these publications cited in clinical practice guidelines locally and internationally.

Glenda currently works at Duke University Hospital as an inpatient IBCLC. She has been with Duke since September 2017. Prior to working at Duke she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Louisville School of Nursing, primarily teaching the maternal newborn courses. She graduated with a BSN from the University of Louisville in 1990, a MSN from Old Dominion in 2004, and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Louisville and will graduate May 2018. She is testing a new breastfeeding assessment instrument she created. She first became certified as an IBCLC in 1997 and took the certification exam for the 3rd time April 2017. She has worked maternal newborn, women’s health, and lactation during her 27 years as a RN. She has presented internationally (but the conference was in Louisville), nationally, and locally. She is a member of ICLA and USLCA.

Ruth Patterson is Cloud Nine's P I O N E E R & Most Sought Lactation Specialist with 33 years of rich experience - currently practicing at Jayanagar C9, Bangalore-India and a visiting Lactation Consultant with 9 other Cloud Nine branches locally. She also heads the 24 Pan India Cloud Nine Hospitals as the Manager Lactation.

Ruth's 30+ years of rich experience includes maternity, allied health and nursing care, both in rural and urban sector in India & Abroad. Her exclusive 18 years of experience in Lactation services, she has acquired immense practical knowledge in the last decade to identify most critical disorders of mother and babies during breastfeeding stage. She is acclaimed to have expertise in a lesser-known art of re-lactation and induced lactation.

Ruth is known for her ability to identify the most critical issues in Breastfeeding and restore/re-initiate feeds. She is acclaimed for the use of Dynamic Taping (only available at Jayanagar C9) that arrests/prevents breast surgery/abscess. This Dynamic Taping practice, alongside, a Gynecologist, Pediatrician and Physiotherapist at Cloud Nine, is patented.

Ruth is a well sought out person for patient hearing and provides her expert comments in News columns/Media and also delivers guest lectures.

Dr. Shazia Shadab (PT) is the HOD of the Cloud nine physiotherapist department (PAN-India). She has 10 years experience and has been exceptional in her career with constant learning of new skills and improvising in her services.

She has multiple articles published in acclaimed newspapers and many international certifications affiliated with her name like pelvic girdle dysfunction, labor mechanism, and has done basic advanced certification in dynamic tapping to name a few. She also has pursued her post-graduation in research methodology after her bachelor's in physiotherapy.

She has always been keen to learn how to progress in a variety of different treatment approaches to find better results. This has helped her and her team to develop an intervention to prevent breast abscess with no surgical approach and has been granted a patent on "a device to promote feeding and scar-free treatment of breast abscess treatment during lactation". She has worked along with professionals like Dr. Kishore Kumar, Dr. Prakash Kini, and Ruth Patterson, and has treated more than 100 patients suffering from breast abscesses without any surgical intervention. This would be an exceptional resource to help and provide better care.

She has extensive expertise in not only treating but also preventing multiple musculoskeletal conditions during pregnancy and postpartum. She has been awarded the ABCD (Above and Beyond the Call on Duty) Award for her unwavering and selfless dedication to her patients.

Dr. Diane DiTomasso achieved a Diploma in Nursing from Newport Hospital School of Nursing; a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, a Master of Science in Nursing Education, and a PhD from the University of Rhode Island. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Rhode Island College of Nursing.

Her research focus is human lactation and infant weight. She has multiple publications in journals such as Journal of Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing (JOGNN), Journal of Human Lactation, Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing, and Nursing for Women’s Health and has presented her work nationally and internationally.

Dr. DiTomasso has received various honors and awards with the most recent being the 2020 Suzanne Feetham Nurse Scientist Family Research Award by the Eastern Nursing Research Society (ENRS) and the 2020 Best of JOGNN Award as first author of the article, “Systematic Review of Expected Weight Changes After Birth for Full-Term, Breastfed Newborn. She has served as Principal Investigator for a variety of neonatal research studies. Dr. DiTomasso is a member of AWHONN, the International Lactation Consultant Association, the Eastern Nursing Research Society, and Sigma Theta Tau International. She currently serves as a Member on the AWHONN Research Advisory Panel.

Helen Gray MPhil IBCLC is Joint Coordinator of the UK Steering Group of the World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative (WBTi). In 2017 she and Clare Meynell IBCLC jointly received the Award for Outstanding Contribution to Breastfeeding from the Lactation Consultants of Great Britain (LCGB), for leading the UK’s first WBTi assessment of infant feeding policies and programmes.

Helen is an international speaker on ethics and conflicts of interest. She represents La Leche League of Great Britain on the UK Baby Feeding Law Group, which works to bring the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes into UK law. She is also Policy and Advocacy Lead for Lactation Consultants of Great Britain, and previously co-chaired LCGB’s Communications Team.

Helen’s background in anthropology and human evolution has influenced her interest in how breastfeeding, and the way we nurture our babies, are influenced by both human biology and culture.

Her current advocacy focus is the need for strong policies to protect infant feeding in emergencies. She currently serves on the Advisory Panel for a London Food Resilience research project with Oxford University.

In her spare time, she can be found sculling on the River Thames.

Allison Walsh IBCLC LCCE FACCE is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (2006), Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator (2000), and and doula (2000) in private practice in New York City. She is one of the three founders of the Lactation Learning Collective, which offers education and support to those on the pathway toward certification as International Board Certified Lactation Consultants along with families in need of lactation support. She trains childbirth educators as a Co-Director of the NYC Lamaze Childbirth Educator Program and is a past president of Lamaze. Allison has represented Lamaze International as a delegate to the United States Breastfeeding Committee since 2004, and has served in various leadership and committee roles. Allison is a member of the New York City Breastfeeding Leadership Council, the New York Lactation Consultant Association, and an active La Leche League Leader. She co-chaired the Save the Birthing Center Committee which was a group of professionals, advocates and consumers who fought valiantly but unsuccessfully to stop the closure of the Mount Sinai West (formerly Roosevelt) Birthing Center in New York City. Prior to the birth of her first child, Allison was a political consultant and community organizer. Skills from that “past life” are useful in all aspects of her work in the birth world. She is a graduate of Syracuse University and mother of three formerly breastfed children. Allison thinks that babies are the most interesting of all people and never underestimates the power of a good cup of tea, fresh air, and fresh bed linen.

Ruth Lucas, PhD, RNC, CLS, received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from George Mason University (1986) and her Doctor of Philosophy of Science (2011) from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Based on 20 years of supporting women and infants to initiate breastfeeding, her research focuses on the biobehavioral mechanisms of breastfeeding, such as breast and nipple pain. Dr. Lucas and her team conducted a pilot randomized control trial (RCT) as part of the Center for Accelerating Precision Pain Self- Management (CAPPS-M) (P20NR016605). The pilot RCT tested the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of a breastfeeding self-management (BSM) intervention for breast and nipple pain during breastfeeding and found the BSM intervention significantly reduced breast and nipple pain and is associated with pain sensitivity polymorphisms. Her published work describes management of pain during breastfeeding, a clinical indictor of infant breastfeeding behaviors, and a biomedical device to measure breastfeeding in real time.

Rosann Edwards is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nursing and Health Sciences at the University of New Brunswick Saint John, an experienced front line public health nurse, and lactation consultant. She is also a third-degree karate black belt, and mother of boys. Rosann’s research and community work focuses on breastfeeding, the transition to motherhood, maternal satisfaction with breast/infant feeding, mothering in the shelter system, and empowering vulnerable populations of women and their children. She is the co-editor of the recent Demeter Press Anthology Breasts across Motherhood: Lived Experiences and Critical Examinations.

Dr. Narvey began his training in Pediatrics at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg where he completed a year of further training in Neonatology. This was followed by two years of Neonatal fellowship at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Afterwards he began his career as a Neonatologist in the same city and over the 6 years he spent there, his career included both clinical and administrative duties including 4 years as the Fellowship Program Director and two years as the Medical Director for a level II unit. In late 2010 he accepted a position in Winnipeg to become the Section Head of Neonatology and continues to hold this post. In 2016 he took on the additional role of Medical Director of the Child Health Transport Team. In 2015 he became a member of the Canadian Pediatric Society’s Fetus and Newborn Committee and in 2019 took over as Chair of the same. His interests predominantly lie in the use of non-invasive technology to minimize painful procedures during an infants stay in the NICU. He is active on social media and has a passion for fundraising and is an active board member of the Children’s Hospital Foundation of Manitoba.

Amy Holmes has practiced as a pharmacist for 21 years with the last 9 years being focused in neonatal critical care at Novant Health Forsyth Medical Center in Winston Salem, NC. She holds degrees in pharmacy from University of North Carolina (BS) as well as the University of Maryland at Baltimore (PharmD). Amy serves as the Residency Program Director for the acute care PGY1 program at Novant Health Forsyth Medical Center. She is active in state and national pharmacy organizations including the Pediatric Pharmacy Advocacy Group (PPAG) and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP).