Continuing Education for Lactation Consultants

Cathy is an expert in the field of lactation support in the workplace and her presentation offers insights into the challenges faced by working mothers who are breastfeeding and provides workable solutions and resources for both mothers and employers.

The content of this wonderful session addresses needs of employed breastfeeding women, including emotional constraints, establishing and sustaining milk production, rebuilding milk production, helping women navigate avenues of support, talking with supervisors and coworkers about their needs, counseling mothers about specific pumping strategies and schedules tailored to the mother’s work situation, and sharing available resources.

Often overlooked and as elusive as the butterfly it resembles, the thyroid gland may lurk behind a number of breastfeeding difficulties, including low-supply, over-supply, and overt lactation failure. Recent research has revealed that thyroid disorders during pregnancy and postpartum are more common than previously thought. A substantial amount of our current professional discourse centers around tongue-tie, which occurs in anywhere from 4.2%-10.7% of babies, while thyroid disorders in lactating women may in fact be more prevalent than tongue tie, affecting anywhere from 6.7%-13.3% of women in the postpartum period. Even more alarming is that as many 50-80% of these cases may be missed by a woman's healthcare provider. During this presentation, you will gain a basic understanding of how the thyroid gland functions and the various ways in which a dysfunctional thyroid can adversely affect lactation. You will also learn which signs and symptoms warrant a referral to a primary health care provider. We will review the latest evidence-based thyroid hormone reference values appropriate for a woman during pregnancy and postpartum so that, if your patient does undergo testing, you will feel confident discussing those results with her. Finally, we will discuss some herbal and dietary recommendations for improving thyroid function.

This lecture was originally offered at our 2017 GOLD Lactation Conference.

The roles of peer counselors (PC) in breastfeeding support is important to reach mothers and families in community as they would bridge the gaps within the warm chain of breastfeeding support. However, challenges has overcome in many forms, especially their reliability in providing breastfeeding support skills and knowledge. Malaysian Breastfeeding Peer Counselors (MBfPC) program has started in 2010 to enhance breastfeeding support for Malaysian community. Its training syllabus were adapted and modulated to be culturally acceptable. More than 500 PCs were trained.

The original syllabus was continuously being revised prior to each training since Malaysia is multicultural with great diversity, with few adaptations of new tools to enhance the understanding among the trainees whom majority are not health personnel. MBfPC Association (MBfPCA) is responsible to reliability queries by other parties, thus overseen the needs for MBfPC training reform. Three training levels were introduced in 2016; entrance, advanced, and train-of-trainers; to increase reliability of certified PC, even though the sustainability of the network is yet to be observed. The mechanisms used to select, train and certify the PCs had strengthened the roles and functional relevancy of MBfPCA existence in Malaysian scenario. This presentation will share the challenges and framework of capacity building among PCs to function as breastfeeding peer supporters in Malaysian context.

This lecture was originally offered at our 2018 GOLD Lactation Conference.

GOLD Lactation, ILCA, IBCLE & LEAARC teamed up to put on a pre-Summit webinar to the 2014 Lactation Summit that was held on July 27 in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. This talk will help you better understand issues related to inequities in access to the lactation consultant profession, what institutional oppression is and how it occurs, the ethical rationale for dismantling institutional oppression, and the change process that individuals and institutions experience when engaging in this work.

This presentation was originally presented at the 21st Annual International Meeting of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine.
I discussed how the research on breastfeeding carried out at the Federal University of Pelotas (Brazil) has helped shape global policies on the recommendation for exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months, the use of child growth standards based on breastfed children, and the harmful long-term consequences of artificial feeding.

This lecture just offers CERPs, if you are looking for CME,CNE credits please purchase The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine Lecture Package.

Did you know that a mother who breastfeeds her child is more likely to "match" as an organ donor than a mother who does not breastfeed her child? How does that happen? The answer may lie in the Maternal-Newborn Microbiome, AKA "The Oro-boobular" axis. The scientific world is exploding with excitement over the discovery of the microbiome. While it appears clear that a suckling infant's intestinal microbiome communicates with the mother's lactocyte and perhaps beyond, little is known about the effects of this communication in practical terms. This presentation will review what is known and attempt to explain what it means, both now and in the future.

This lecture was originally offered at our 2017 GOLD Lactation Conference.

"Bodywork to Support Infant Feeding". Everything in the body is connected. Learn how bodywork can be integrated into collaborative health care to support infant feeding skills. Topics will include oral motor patterns and reflexes, an embryologic view of tongue-tie, the vagus nerve and its impact on the infant airway, swallowing and coordination of suck, how structural issues located in parts of the body other than the mouth can cause issues with feeding and much more.

Trauma Informed Care is defined as an organizational structure and treatment framework that involves understanding, recognizing and responding to the effects of all types of trauma. The perinatal period is a particularly vulnerable one, and it is crucial to understand how past trauma of any kind may influence the way that clients perceive and experience their perinatal care. Join our expert speakers to learn more about how to approach perinatal families through a lens of trauma informed care.

Bloody nipple discharge is an unusual experience during lactation for both the mother and her attending physicians. Painless bleeding from the breasts in the early post-partum period can be a physiological condition called a rusty pipe syndrome. This report describes the case of bilateral bloody nipple discharge that started after caesarean section and subsequently ceased within a few days. Natural breastfeeding is the best way of nourishing newborns and infants. The process of breast milk production starts as early as between weeks 16 and 22 of pregnancy and colostrum can appear from the nipple in the following weeks. Milk containing blood can be a cause of concern for the mother and her physician. The reasons can be various; however not all of them would be caused by bleeding from the glandular tissue.

This lecture was originally offered at our 2017 GOLD Lactation Conference.

The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine 21st Annual International Conference took place from October 13-16, 2016 in Washington, DC. We're thrilled to offer the recordings from this conference here in our GOLD Learning Library. With 22 individual presentations providing a total of 13.5 CE hours, this package gives access to world class speakers at minimal cost. Topics covered include evidence on the benefits of breastfeeding, ethics, policy being influenced by research, the impact contraceptives on lactation, skin-to-skin care, milksharing, extended breastfeeding in mothers of colour, and more. This package comes with 8 weeks of viewing time, giving plenty of time to watch recordings. Speaker handouts are available for download for each of the presentations.

Breastfeeding is widely acknowledged as being the healthiest way to feed an infant for at least two years. In the United States of America, the CDC 2014 Breastfeeding Report Card states that 79.2% of mothers start out breastfeeding. However, as the babies get older, these numbers plummet. Only 49.4% of these babies are receiving any breastmilk by 6 months of age. We know from the literature that the primary reasons mothers stop breastfeeding in these early months are pain and worrying about their breastmilk supply. These are problems with solutions if the proper support is in place. Why is this support lacking? Is it because for all of the talk, "breast is best", the importance of breastfeeding is not really valued? What if successful breastfeeding was reframed into a milestone? Baby's first milestone? This presentation will explore other milestones, walking, talking, and learning to read, and what happens if babies and young children are not reaching these markers in a reasonable time frame. What support systems are in place to help these milestones be achieved if babies are faltering? The possible reasons for a baby not being able to breastfeeding and possible solutions will then be examined from the lens of having proper support systems in place.

This lecture was originally offered at our 2017 GOLD Lactation Conference.

Warm and empathic bedside manner is a lost art in provider-patient interactions. Be it time constraints, systemic limitations, lack of trust or training, the disconnect is apparent and the consequences are grave. In this talk, lactation support providers have an opportunity to learn how to be intentional in their approach to care in a way that honors the patient and their needs while also meeting them where they are. This talk will consider attitude, cultural, language, and other factors that might have traditionally impeded communication or relational connection in order to get to the heart of drawing lines of trust and respect between Patient and provider.

This lecture was originally offered as part of the GOLD Lactation Alumni Presentations 2019 Package. This program has been approved for 1 CERP (1 L-CERP).

Free to GOLD Learning Delegates with Alumni Status - Do you have Alumni status? As a special thank you to our past participants that have attended 5 or more Conferences, you are invited to attend with a complimentary registration. Add this package to your cart and follow the check out process. When prompted, login with your GOLD Learning associated email address and on the final step, the discount will be automatically applied. A separate invitation email will also be sent to our Alumni Status Delegates. Not sure if you're elgible, check your Alumni Status here.

GOLD Annual Members: Please note that GOLD Annual Membership is not the same thing as having Alumni Status. Become a GOLD Annual Member to enjoy a 10% discount from your registration fee!

Along with providing IBCLC's with all the E-CERPS necessary for re-certification, this lecture pack provides the latest thought provoking information from prominent experts in the field of lactation ethics. After watching these presentations, you'll find yourself feeling prepared and more confident as you face the ethical challenges that frequently present themselves when working with breastfeeding families.

This presentation was originally presented at the 21st Annual International Meeting of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine.
Using an equity analysis is key to achieving optimal breastfeeding rates for all mothers and babies. Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine has been working to incorporate a system based root cause analysis into their work, as organization and in the field. Center of Social Inclusion has been supporting the field in thinking about how to incorporate a structural lens into work around birth and breastfeeding. In this presentation, we overview a structural race analysis, share specific implications for breastfeeding and first food policy and practice.
This lecture just offers CERPs, if you are looking for CME,CNE credits please purchase The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine Lecture Package.

Most lactation professionals love client interactions, but only send reports to health care providers out of a sense of duty. But writing and sending reports to our client's health care providers can be more just an administrative task. Yes, it complies with IBLCE's Code of Ethics to "Principle 4: Report accurately and completely to other members of the healthcare team" but it can also increase collaboration, improve client outcomes, and grow your practice. This presentation seeks to reframe the process of writing and sending reports from a dreaded task to a clinical, ethical, and holistic way of supporting our clients while positively positioning ourselves as allied health professionals. Beyond the ethics (yes or no) and practicalities ("S.O.A.P." or not), a report to a health care provider is a source of communication about the consultation as well as marketing about your clinical skill, role in the client's lactation experience, and lactation practice. With a combination of the why and how, this presentation outlines the ways in which reports to health care providers can be beneficial to the client, the health care provider, and the IBCLC, as well as devoting some time to specific strategies that lactation consultants can implement to streamline the process of sending reports so that we can get to the next client.

This lecture was originally offered at our 2017 GOLD Lactation Conference.

This packages consists of 3 lectures. We invited back past Alumni Speakers to present on new & relevant topics within the area of breastfeeding. This package is exclusively recorded for our GOLD Learning CE Library.

The GOLD Lactation Online Conference is the largest annual breastfeeding conference in the world. It is an excellent resource suitable for all skill levels and is a perfect fit for IBCLC's, Lactation Consultants, Nurses, Lactation Educators, Breastfeeding Counselors, Mother to Mother (Peer to Peer) Support Workers, Midwives, Physicians, Dietitians, Doulas, Childbirth Educators and anyone else working or studying within the maternal-child health industry. Explore the latest research, trends, new ideas and hot topics in the world of human lactation with the 2018 GOLD Lactation Conference!

Breastfeeding rates upon discharge is rising in Hong Kong over the past 20 years. Breastfeeding has become more of a topic than ever before. However, it is still very common to have early introduction of formula and exclusive breastfeeding rate is still low. Most private hospitals do not allow 24 hours room in. Many mothers need to go back to work when the baby is only six weeks old. In Hong Kong, it is very common to practice a confinement period after birth. This traditional Chinese wisdom has many benefits for the mothers and babies. Mothers of other cultures can also make use of some of the practices to benefit themselves.

This lecture was originally offered at our 2017 GOLD Lactation Conference.