IBCLC & COVID Online Course(s) & Continuing Education
Access the latest clinical skills and research for IBCLC & COVID for IBCLC/Lactation Consultants professional training. These IBCLC & COVID online courses provide practice-changing skills and valuable perspectives from leading global experts. This IBCLC & COVID education has been accredited for a variety of CEUs / CERPs and can be accessed on-demand, at your own pace.

COVID-19 Guidance for Maternal and Newborn Care: Who’s Doing What and Why

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.
Topic: Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies: Background, Best Practice, and What You Can Do - [View Abstract]
Topic: Milk Sharing: Comparative Risks and Biomedical Ethics - [View Abstract]
Where women are suspected or confirmed as having COVID-19, hospital practices have ranged from isolating infants from their mothers and proscribing the provision of expressed breastmilk to supporting mothers to have skin-to-skin with their infants, early initiation of breastfeeding, direct breastfeeding, and rooming in day and night.
This presentation will briefly summarize the evidence base for breastfeeding and close mother-infant contact in the COVID-19 pandemic. It will also describe the variance in government and professional development guidance around the world, anomalies in guidance, which guidance documents have had the most influence internationally, and provide examples of good and poor practice in guidance development. Finally, this presentation will discuss the importance of emergency planning for infant and young child feeding and the need to learn from the mistakes of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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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.
Topic: Ready-Made Educational Breastfeeding Material to Improve Parental Education and Empower Parents. - [View Abstract]
Breastfeeding parents will encounter the SARS-CoV-2 virus and may contract COVID-19. The availability of new vaccines against COVID-19 created a need for guidance about vaccination during lactation. We aim to get an insight into the effects of COVID-19 vaccines during the lactation period. This entails the safety of vaccination during lactation, the immune response in lactating women and the excretion of immunological factors in breastmilk. Not a lot is known about the transfer of immunoglobulin A (IgA) and the mechanisms by which these antibodies provide protection to the neonate via breast milk. This presentation contributes to the knowledge of SARS-COV-2 infections and the use of different vaccine-platforms during breastfeeding and will benefit the population with respect to public health. As vaccination during lactation could result in clinically relevant sIgA-titers in breastmilk and protecting the child in early life, it is of importance that women have this information to decide whether to take the vaccine.