Lactation & Breastfeeding Online Course(s) & Continuing Education

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.

Alyssa has been helping parents and babies with breastfeeding since 2002, first as a La Leche League Leader and since 2009 as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant.

Alyssa works in private practice serving clients worldwide, primarily through telehealth. She is the author of Breastfeeding Without Birthing: A Breastfeeding Guide for Mothers Through Adoption, Surrogacy, and Other Special Circumstances and a professional supplement to the book, The Breastfeeding Without Birthing Professional Pack online training.

Alyssa has authored articles for The Journal of Human Lactation: The Three Step Framework for Inducing Lactation and Successful Co-Lactation by a Queer Couple: A Case Study. She has also authored articles for La Leche League’s Leader Today and Breastfeeding Today magazines, and Adoptive Families magazine. She is an international speaker on the topics of inducing lactation, relactation, and other related topics. Alyssa is the proud mother of three breastfed children, two by birth and one by adoption. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.

Tina Revai came to breastfeeding professionally in her practice working with families as a nurse of 25 years. However, once becoming a mother, her understanding of breastfeeding as an important factor in the feeling of success (or not) in parental role transition became experientially apparent. In order to support others towards self-defined breastfeeding success, Tina became a La Leche League Leader in 2006 and an IBCLC in 2007. She is currently co-president of the British Columbia Lactation Consultants Association and continues to work directly with families in her community of Port Alberni, on beautiful Vancouver Island, Canada.

Dr Natalie Shenker is a former surgeon, scientist, and the cofounder of the Human Milk Foundation, which aims to ensure more babies are fed with human milk. As well as supporting a range of educational and research studies, the HMF aims to ensure assured access to screened donor milk through a network of human milk banks based on the cost-effective innovative model of the Hearts Milk Bank (HMB). Milk banks provide screened breastmilk to premature babies whose own mothers need time to establish breastfeeding, protecting them from a range of life-threatening complications and supporting the mother to breastfeed. The HMB has been operating in the UK for 18 months, and has supported neonatal units as well as families in the community where breastfeeding is impossible or taking time to establish.

JAMES MCKENNA (B.A., University of California, Berkeley; M.A., San Diego State University; Ph.D., University of Oregon) Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C., Professor of Anthropology

McKenna pioneered the first behavioral and electro-physiological studies documenting differences between mothers and infants sleeping together and apart and has become known worldwide for his work in promoting studies of breast feeding and mother-infant cosleeping. A biological anthropologist, and Director of the Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory McKenna began his career studying the social behavior and development of monkeys and apes with an emphasis on parenting behavior and ecology. He has published over 150 articles and six books including a popular parenting book Sleeping With Your baby: A Parents Guide To Co-sleeping. He has coedited Ancestral Landscapes In Human Evolution, Evolutionary Medicine, and a more recent co-edited volume Evolution and Health: New Perspectives (Oxford University Press. He won the prestigious Shannon Award (with Dr. Sarah Mosko) from the National Institutes of Child Health and Development for his SIDS research and is the nation's foremost authority and spokesperson to the national press on issues pertaining to infant and childhood sleep problems, sleep development, and breastfeeding.

Alice Callahan completed her PhD in Nutritional Biology at UC Davis in 2008, followed by a postdoc in fetal physiology at the University of Arizona. She left the academic track in 2011 to pursue a dual career in college teaching and science writing. Her book, The Science of Mom: A Research-Based Guide to Your Baby’s First Year, about the science of raising a baby, was published in 2015 by Johns Hopkins University Press and was named one of the best science books of the year by Science News. As a freelance writer, Callahan covers health and nutrition topics – often focusing on pregnancy, infancy, and childhood – for many publications, including The New York Times, Washington Post, and Lifehacker. She and her family live in Eugene, Oregon, where she also teaches nutrition and physiology at the University of Oregon and Lane Community College.

Evelyne Ruf is a family physician from France, and an International Board Lactation Consultant (since 1993). More than 25 years ago, she shifted to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), working for the Ministry of Health, in Sharjah MCH Center. She opened there the first Lactation Clinic in the UAE, with the support of volunteers from Breastfeeding Friends (BFF), which she had co-founded. Five years ago, the Lactation Clinic has been shifted to the Family Health Promotion Center, where it continues to offer, to a very cosmopolitan population, skilled lactation support as well as assessment and release of tethered oral tissues.

A member of the National Breastfeeding Committee, Evelyne has been involved in the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative as a lecturer, trainer, adviser and assessor. Her workplace became the first Baby-Friendly Health Center in the UAE and received the IBCLC Care Award (community category) in 2015.

She has also been actively involved in the Sharjah Baby-Friendly Emirate Campaign, a multi-sectorial initiative launched in 2012, and presented its achievements during Gold Lactation 4 years ago.

With her husband of 34 years, she is the proud and grateful mother of 5 grown-up breastfed children and the grandmother of 4 breastfed little ones.

Michelle has been a pediatric neurodevelopmental Occupational therapist specializing in precrawling infants for over 26 years. She has specialty certifications and training in lactation, manual therapy, and pre and peri natal psychology. Michelle has specialized in optimal cranial nerve function and oral restrictions, with an emphasis on infant movement, innate biological imperatives and human potential, providing novel curriculums, support and resources for both professionals and parents. She enjoys collaborating and working in teams for babies and families going through the tethered oral tissues release process.

Naida Hawkins is a Registered Nurse and Lactation consultant in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. She is a passionate registered nurse who has cared for breastfeeding families for 14 years.

Almereau Prollius is an Obstetrician and Gynecologist in Saskatoon, SK. Together with Naida they have a special interest in strategies to promote successful breast feeding and are advocates of prenatal hand expression. They work as part of an interdisciplinary team supporting families to have an easier time starting and continuing breastfeeding.

More Milk Sooner is their program which supports and promotes hand expression in the antenatal and early postpartum period. Based out of Saskatoon and North Battleford in Saskatchewan, they hope to empower patients and care providers to increase successful breastfeeding. They are delighted to be sharing their journey with you. They are actively involved in research reviewing the outcomes of the implementation of the prenatal hand expression education strategy.