Lactation & Breastfeeding Online Course(s) & Continuing Education

Barbara D. Robertson, IBCLC, has been involved in education for over 34 years. She received a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education in 1988 and her Master’s in Education in 1995. Barbara left teaching elementary students in 1995 to raise her two children. Barbara is now the Director of The Breastfeeding Center of Ann Arbor and of the brand new business LactaLearning.

The Breastfeeding Center of Ann Arbor will still continue to serve breast/chestfeeding families and now LactaLearning will be dedicated to all of Barbara’s professional lactation trainings. Barbara has developed two 95 hour professional lactation training, a group training and a completely self study training with Nancy Mohrbacher. Barbara’s idea of creating professional book groups has exploded with her hosting Making More Milk with Lisa Marasco, Supporting Sucking Skills with Cathy Watson Genna, Breastfeeding Answers, 2nd Edition with Nancy Mohrbacher, and new for the fall, Safe Infant Sleep with Dr. James McKenna. Barbara will be hosting a one day online conference in the fall with Lisa Marasco and Cathy Watson Genna using all of her tech savvy skills to make this a one of a kind experience. Barbara is also a speaker for hire on a wide variety of topics including Motivational Interviewing. Barbara volunteered for the United States Lactation Consultation Association as the Director of Professional Development for 4.5 years.

She just retired as Associate Editor for Clinical Lactation, a journal she helped create for USLCA. Barbara has free podcasts, a blog, and Youtube videos which can all be found on her websites lactalearning.com and bfcaa.com. She has written many articles as well. She loves working with parents and babies, helping them with breast/chestfeeding problems in whatever way she can.

Cynthia Good, MS Clinical Psychology, is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, Clinical Counselor, author, consultant, and internationally recognized speaker. She is the Director of LifeCircle Consulting, LLC and is Certified in Acute Traumatic Stress Management. She is based in the Seattle, Washington, USA area, where she formerly served as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Midwifery at Bastyr University where she taught counseling skills and is a therapist at Sandbox Therapy Group where she works with children, adults, and families. Cynthia has a strong interest in the emerging field of lactational psychology. She brings the evidence and insights of psychology and lactation consulting to her presentations, providing information and teaching skills that are essential to understanding and effectively responding to the complex psychosocial realities of families living in diverse contexts. The focus of her presentations includes communication skills and counseling techniques for perinatal care providers; equity, diversity, and inclusion; infant feeding rhetoric; perinatal mental health; perinatal loss, grief, and trauma; ethics; serving as an expert witness in lactation-related court cases; cultural competence and humility; vitamin D; and more.

Dr. Hazelbaker has been a therapist in private practice for over 30 years. She specializes in cross-disciplinary treatment and to that end has taken training in several modalities to best assist her clients. She is a certified Craniosacral Therapist, a Lymph Drainage Therapy practitioner, a Tummy Time™ Trainer, a Haller Method practitioner, A Pre and Perinatal Psychology Educator, a Lactation Therapist Diplomate, an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant and a fellow of the International Lactation Consultant Association.

She earned her Master’s Degree from Pacific Oaks College (Human Development specializing in Human Lactation) and her doctorate from The Union Institute and University (Psychology, specializing in Energetic and Transformational healing.)

People recognize her as an expert on infant sucking issues caused by various structural problems like torticollis, plagiocephaly, brachycephaly and tissue shock-trauma. She invented the Hazelbaker™ FingerFeeder and the Infant Breastfeeding CranioSacral Protocol™ to assist in the resolution of this type of infant sucking dysfunction.

Kristie Gatto, MA, CCC-SLP, COM received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Houston in Houston, Texas. She has worked as a speech-language pathologist in the public and private school systems, skilled nursing, rehabilitation and children’s hospitals, and in private practice. In 2004, Ms. Gatto became the co-owner of a private practice in Northwest Houston and began her journey in treating children with pediatric feeding disorders. After years of searching for answers in traditional feeding approaches, she underwent training in the field of Orofacial Myology and became the first certified orofacial myologist in the city of Houston in 2011. Ms. Gatto is currently the owner of The Speech and Language Connection, which has two offices in the greater Houston area and employs 21 speech-language pathologists with various specialties.

For the past ten years, she has focused her clinical skills on treating patients with issues in feeding, dysphagia, deglutition, oral sensory aversion, orofacial myology, and swallowing- related disorders, as well as articulation, phonological processing, apraxia, and early childhood intervention.

Ms. Gatto is a member of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), International Association of Orofacial Myology (IAOM), American Academy of Private Practice in Speech Pathology & Audiology (AAPPSPA), Texas Speech-Language-Hearing Association (TSHA), and Houston Association for Communication Disorders (HACD). Additionally, she serves on the board of directors for the IAOM and AAPPSPA and the Community Advisory Board for the University of Houston.

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.

Dr. Fayrouz Essawy, pediatrician, neonatology consultant, an international board-certified lactation consultant, Neonatology Egyptian fellowship trainer, a baby friendly hospital initiative coordinator and associate alumni, Harvard Medical School Harvard Graduate of Training Of Trainer program 2020. Harvard Graduate of Egypt Clinical Scholars Research Training (CSRT) program 2021. Member of the Egyptian Society of Pediatrics Member of the Egyptian Lactation Consultants Association (ELCA) Member of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (ABM) Member of the International Lactation Consultant Association (ILCA).

Amal Aly Roshdy Hassan Eltawil is a graduate of Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, class of 1986 who obtained Masters of Pediatrics in 1992 from Faculty of Medicine, Cairo university, and Doctorate of Pediatrics from Al Azhar university in 2002. Amal became an IBCLC in 2003. Since 2004 she has been providing a pre-exam course for the Egyptian Lactation Consultants' Association of which she is a board member, treasurer and education coordinator. She is also a member of the Advisory committee of IBFAN Arab world since 2012. Amal is a member of ILCA since 2008 and a member of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (ABM) since 2009. She became a fellow and Board member of ABM in 2021.

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”.

Lisa Marasco has been working with breastfeeding mothers for 35 years and has been Internationally Board Certified since 1993. She holds a Master’s degree in Human Development with specialization in Lactation Consulting and was designated a Fellow of ILCA in 2009.

Lisa is co-author of Making More Milk: The Breastfeeding Guide to Increasing Your Milk Production, a contributing author to the Core Curriculum for Interdisciplinary Lactation Care, and a Cochrane Collaborative author. She is employed by WIC of Santa Barbara County while she continues to research, write and speak. In addition, Lisa is affiliated with La Leche League of So. Calif/Nevada, and serves on the Breastfeeding Coalition of Santa Barbara County.

Lori J. Isenstadt, IBCLC, CCE, CBD, began her IBCLC career in 2 large hospitals and a local breastfeeding clinic. In 2007, she opened her practice, All About Breastfeeding, offering private consultations, and breastfeeding classes. Her expertise ranges from basic breastfeeding through the most complicated of breastfeeding challenges. In the last 30 years, Lori has taught breastfeeding classes to over 8000 parents where she focuses on what they should expect in the early days of breastfeeding. Lori is a member of Toastmasters International and enjoys speaking about mothering and breastfeeding. Lori is the host of All About Breastfeeding, a podcast where she interviews mothers, authors, researchers and physicians about topics related to breastfeeding. Lori believes that breastfeeding is a family affair. To help support her mission to educate families as well as corporations and business owners about breastfeeding, she has recently released the most comprehensive audio breastfeeding masterclass. She has produced over 300 shows many of which focus on breastfeeding educational topics. On a personal note, Lori resides in Phoenix, AZ is married to Alan for 38 years and is the mother of three adult children. Lori can be reached by email: [email protected] and website: www.aabreastfeeding.com

Brandi Gates-Burgess is a Lactation Consultant at Highland Hospital, Community Engagement specialist for the MILK Research Lab, serves on the Community Advisory Board of the UCSF Preterm Birth Initiative, and Co-chairs The Breastfeeding Cultural Outreach Taskforce (BCOT). Recently, Brandi transitioned from her 16-year career providing lactation support to families of the California WIC Program and decided to live her dream. She started her non-profit organization Breast Friends Lactation Support Services where she provides group lactation education and support to Black Families in the Bay Area. She is a mother to 4 breastfed children, wife and world traveler.