IBCLC / Lactation Consultants Online Course(s) & Continuing Education

Dr. Andrew Dorough is a native of St. Louis, Missouri. He attended Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in biology. He then earned his Doctor of Chiropractic Degree from Logan College of Chiropractic in St. Louis, Missouri. He later earned a post-graduate certification from the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association (CACCP). He is qualified to deliver highly skilled and safe treatment to pregnant and postnatal patients and to neonatal and infant patients. Dr. Dorough enjoys providing collaborative care. He currently works in a family medicine clinic which boasts a breastfeeding medicine physician IBCLC, along with other IBCLCs, two nurse practitioners and a physician assistant. He assesses and treats infants with various forms of structural issues, including but not limited to cranial bone deformation (plagiocephaly), torticollis, and tongue and neck dysfunction, as related to feeding difficulties and infant well-being.

Tanya Singleton is a registered nurse with over 35 years of experience in Maternal-Child nursing. More than half of that career was as a Labor and Delivery nurse, certified in High-Risk Perinatal nursing. Tanya is also an IBCLC lactation consultant and Lamaze childbirth educator. She retired as United States Army Nurse Corp officer in 2003 and began working in private practice as a lactation consultant and childbirth educator. She has run several community non-profits in the Fredericksburg, Virginia area that dealt with issues related to women’s and children’s health promotion and illness prevention. Tanya is committed to quality education and lifelong learning, and has taught maternal-child and pediatric nursing to students in the Rappahannock Region of Virginia, sharing her various clinical anecdotes in classroom and in labs. She is an advocate for Perinatal Grief Support and early detection of post-partum depression. She is owner and proprietor of The Baby Whisperer, providing in-home support in childbirth education, breastfeeding and parenting. She is the mother of a blended family of five adult children and Nana to three.

With over 25 years’ experience as a relationship counsellor, parents’ group facilitator, mental health educator, partner and mum, Elly Taylor has become an internationally known parenthood preparation and perinatal relationship expert and the award-winning author of Becoming Us. Elly’s passion is preparing parents for a happy and healthy family—at any stage in their parenthood journey, and especially in a challenging world. Her Becoming Us approach includes fathers and partners in all aspects of pregnancy, birth and beyond, harnesses the attachment bond between couples to stabilise them through the life changes and challenges of parenthood and links both parents into community services to support the mental, emotional and relational wellbeing of the whole family.

Elly has served as an advisor for numerous university research projects and her ground-breaking Becoming Us developmental framework has now become a comprehensive multi-disciplinary education and professional training and courses for parents. In a full circle moment, Elly recently trained midwives, allied health and therapy professionals in her local community and now Becoming Us Nest Building Sessions are preparing expectant parents in the hospitals where her children were born. Elly lives in Sydney, Australia with her firefighter husband, their three kidults and an abundance of pets.

I am the mother of three breastfed children. Certified as an IBCLC in 2007, the next year, in 2008, setup the first IBCLC clinic in the medical center in Taiwan. As the President of the Chinese Lactation Consultant Association from 2015 till now. I have been teaching in the university for 30 years and as a part-time associate professor in the Department of Midwife & Women Health, National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Science, Taiwan now. After I retired from the university, I fund and as the CEO of WELL International Co., aims to promote the three-stages certification of profession lactation support competence.

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.

Allyson Wessells is a physical therapist, International Board Certified Lactation Consultant and co-owner of Nurture Columbus, in Columbus, Ohio. She completed a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Ohio University in 1997, and Master of Physical Therapy degree from Northwestern University in 1999. After having a child in 2007, she volunteered as a La Leche League leader. She discovered a love for supporting new parents but a gap in lactation care, which led her to become an IBCLC in 2014. Her clinical approach to identifying and overcoming feeding challenges is unique with physical therapy foundations in posture, movement and reflexive function. Through presentations she endeavors to engage IBCLCs to know more about movement as related to human lactation, and PTs to learn about breastfeeding/chestfeeding as related to human development. As past-president (2019-2021) of the Ohio Lactation Consultant Association, she also advocates for equitable access to and health plan coverage for lactation care.

Meghan McMillin holds a Master’s Degree in Human Nutrition from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has been a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN) since 2013 and became an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) in 2019

Meghan spent 5 years working clinically in the NICU, pediatric floor and women’s units of a local hospital. In 2019, Meghan started her own private practice and consulting company, Mama & Sweet Pea Nutrition, with a focus on postpartum and infant care. The mama to two young kids with food allergies, helping other families manage food allergies, whether it’s while breastfeeding, during the introduction of solids, or later in childhood, is her passion.

Meghan is a member of the International Lactation Consultant Association and the United States Lactation Consultant Association. She enjoys sharing her knowledge through social media, freelance writing and public speaking. Meghan is the coauthor of the eBook What To Eat When Your Baby Can’t Tolerate Milk, Soy, or Egg Protein; Nutrition guidance for avoiding milk, soy, and/or eggs while lactating.

Meghan has presented both nationally and internationally including for GOLD learning, the National WIC Association and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. In 2020, Meghan was awarded the Emerging Professional in Women's Health Award from the Women's Health Dietetic Practice Group of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
Meghan lives with her husband and two children outside of Chicago, IL. In her spare time she enjoys working out, allergen-free baking and having dance parties with her kids in the kitchen.

Karleen Gribble (BRurSc, PhD) is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Western Sydney University.

Her interests include infant and young child feeding in emergencies, marketing of breastmilk substitutes, parenting and care of maltreated children, child-caregiver and caregiver-child attachment, adoption reform, and treatment of infants and young children within the child protection, immigration detention, and criminal justice systems.

She has published research on these subjects in peer-reviewed journals, provided media commentary, contributed to government enquiries, provided expert opinion for courts, and engaged in training of health professionals, social workers, and humanitarian workers on these subjects.

Karleen is an Australian Breastfeeding Association Community Educator and Breastfeeding Counsellor. Since 2010 she has been a member of the Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies Core Group and has been at the forefront of the development of policy, training and research in the area of infant and young child feeding in emergencies.

Joke graduated as a Midwife in 2006 and a Master in Midwifery in 2008. She obtained the IBCLC lactation consultant degree in 2011. She graduated in specialised applied pharmacology in 2015. She has experience as midwife and lactation consultant in her own primary care practice, lecturer at the University College Brussels, head editor of the Flemish Journal of Midwifery and board member of the Flemish Organisation of midwives and ELACTA. At the moment Joke is also a researcher on COVID-19 vaccination during lactation at the University of Brussels.

Cathy Carothers is co-director of Every Mother, a non-profit organization providing lactation training for health professionals. An International Board Certified Lactation Consultant since 1996, she has provided more than 600 training events and conference presentations in every U.S. state/territory and several countries. She is past president of the International Lactation Consultant Association (ILCA), a fellow of ILCA, and past chair of the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee. She chairs the design team for the equity initiative in the lactation consultant profession, and chairs the Monetary Investment for Lactation Consultant Certification (MILCC), which works to reduce financial barriers to the IBCLC exam. She has directed several national breastfeeding promotion and support initiatives for the U.S. federal government, including the national USDA WIC peer counseling program, and national workplace support initiatives through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She was honored with the 2014 National Leadership Award from the National WIC Association.

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.

Annette Leary is a registered nurse with over 33 years of experience working in Maternal Child Health. She became an IBCLC In 1995. She works as a Maternal Educator in a large tertiary care hospital (14,000 deliveries a year) that is Magnet designated, JCAHO certified, and BFHI awarded. Her responsibilities include providing outpatient lactation virtual and in-person support, staff education, and inpatient consultations. She began her Upledger Craniosacral training in 2015, taking advanced maternal and pediatric specialty classes. Her most special efforts to date include her marriage of over 33 years, four adult children and being nana to two grandchildren.

Naomi Hull as a Registered Nurse, an International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) and has a Master of Public Health (Nutrition). Naomi is mum to two teenage young adults, a Rhodesian Ridgeback and three chickens. Since 2006 Naomi has been a volunteer Breastfeeding Counsellor (Cert IV Breastfeeding Education) with the Australian Breastfeeding Association, and she qualified as an IBCLC in 2010 and has worked in a small Private Practice in Brisbane. While completing her MPH at the University of Queensland (UQ) she focused her dissertation on a qualitative review of stakeholder’s perceptions of the implementation of the Australian National Breastfeeding Strategy (2010-2015). Since then she has gone on to lead and coordinate a national team in the assessment of Australian breastfeeding policies and programs using the World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative (WBTi) Assessment Tool. Naomi is the Senior Manager for Breastfeeding Information and Research at the Australian Breastfeeding Association, where she is responsible for the provision of up to date, evidence-based information for the general community and health professionals.

Maxine Scringer-Wilkes graduated with a nursing degree followed later on by her Master of Nursing in 2017 both from the University of Calgary. Maxine was a public health nurse in Calgary for 13 years, where providing face to face contacts with new families soon after discharge is a standard of care. Most families named feeding challenges as their biggest concern. In turn, Maxine developed a passion for lactation support, worked towards and attained the International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant designation, in order to assist families to reach their feeding goals. In 2016, Maxine made the transition from public health to acute care where she currently works in all areas of a large Children’s hospital to support dyads with a myriad of lactation concerns but is primarily in the NICU. Maxine’s responsibilities includes orienting new staff to teaching a provincial lactation education within a team. Maxine is passionate about sharing knowledge with aspiring LCs and is a mentor to many. Maxine participates on numerous committees to update lactation and feeding policies, procedures and documents. Furthermore, she volunteers on provincial and national breastfeeding committees.