Dear Friends,


Karleen’s comments are super interesting to me.

Okay here goes. I was the lactation consultant in the scenario I posted,
it’s not a fiction at all. Actually, there were four of us IBCLCs with our
backs against the wall, but I don’t know that my sister colleagues are free
to identify themselves. I won’t speak for them but I will say we stood
together and kept our jobs without violating the Code. Two things happened
after we told our employer we couldn't do the work because it was a WHO Code
violation-

1. our employer sought "second credential" breastfeeding helpers, CLC's, to
do the job for the Code violator as CLC's are not bound by the Code and
also, I’m quite sure, because they wouldn’t have to pay them as much as an
IBCLC or an RN or an RD for that matter.

2. One unscrupulous IBCLC signed on as well. I felt bad for her. I’m sure
she needed a job and jobs in lactation are hard to come by. Still, I most
certainly would have reported her myself, but we were advised at work that
any perceived harrassment would result in termination. Before I could figure
out how to report her without getting fired myself in the process, she quit
the job.  I’d like to think her conscience got the better of her and that
she regrets it, but I don’t know. To my knowledge no one outside the company
would have known her name or known that she was violating the Code, although
I suppose someone very motivated might have been able to discover her by
calling the helpline and asking questions about credentials. As a group they
were besieged with calls from lactivists and they became pretty skilled at
weeding out the lactivists from “legit” callers, so it wouldn’t have been as
easy as it sounds.

Truthfully, I am glad that I didn’t have to report her. That would be really
awful to have to do that.

I recently called the ‘helpline” to see what they've up to lately and I was
directed to a CLC, not an IBCLC, although on their website they call the
CLCs lactation consultants, which I think is a shameless fraud against an
unsuspecting public but somehow perfectly legal, all due respect to the many
excellent, dedicated CLCs I know personally and who are on this list. I
started out as a CLC.

If someone out there has information on this I would love to hear it. One
reminder before you post and I hate to sound all cloak and dagger but: these
discussions are most definitely monitored by people who stand to gain from
our defeats. Contact me off list.

Urging you to post your comments to the IBLCE re the new “Code” pronto!

Best regards,

Kristen Panzer, MS IBCLC

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