Just read the newly posted document which IBLCE calls Scope of Practice on
their website, thanks to Regina for posting about it.  I'm still no mail and
while I continue to work with breastfeeding every day I am not as tightly
enmeshed in the usual loops as when I am reading LN all the time, and I
hadn't read through it before.  I recognize some passages from the ILCA
draft.  I am happy to see that the word 'contradict' doesn't appear in this
document and I am happy to see that they recognize that different countries
actually do have different laws and rules for practitioners of all kinds,
and that we must keep within whatever legal limits exist where we practice.

BUT I must say I am a little confused because to my mind this document would
be better titled 'Standards of practice' than 'scope'.  Scope of practice
refers to what we actually do; it delineates what is our domain, which
actions and techniques may be part of our repertoire.  This document
contains very little about what IBCLCs do, but an awful lot about the way we
ought to do it, and in this case they seem to have emphasized the ethical
standards more than the standards for what skills we should have.  Evidence
based, free of conflict of interest, collaboratively with other people who
work with the mother - all these things read more like a code of ethics for
practice, not a scope.

Compared to the previous so-called scope of practice which was more of a
listing of all the things we COULDN'T do, this is infinitely better because
it holds almost no limits whatsoever.  For someone who had never watched an
IBCLC work one to two with a mother and baby, this document would add little
in the way of illumination about what an IBCLC consultation would look like.
It could be that that is a good thing.  It's certainly better than saying we
can't ever contradict anyone else.

I've only read it very quickly but nothing jumped out at me the way it did
in the previous, most unfortunate, attempt at writing a scope of practice!

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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