Dear Lactnet Friends:

The World Health Organization says that all maternity staff needs 20-hours
of breastfeeding education and offers an outline for such a course; if that
practice was universal, mothers and babies and breastfeeding would benefit.
(There is an outline for a US 20-hour course, from BabyFriendly USA, as the
WHO/UNICEF version has a lot in it about mothers with HIV+ and
breastfeeding, not encouraged yet by US health organizations.)

While IBCLCs are useful in many situations, they are specialists. Having all
dyads seen by a specialist in the first day or 2 of life sounds like
overkill to me, and fosters an attitude of "breastfeeding is so complicated
we have to have experts to monitor."  Such an attitude will not help
breastfeeding to become the cultural norm in the US.

IBCLCs are valuable; I believe they merit licensure as their work is similar
to that of an occupational therapist or a marriage counselor. I am
challenged and delighted by my work in public health, as well as in private
practice. I wish that every NICU had coverage, and that mothers with
complicated situations had the joy of specialized attention before hospital
discharge. But every mother? No. I'd prefer that all maternity staff knew
what to do, and that breastfeeding is deeply integrated into schools of
nursing and medicine and midwifery and the various other therapies and
healthcare practices.

warmly,

Nikki Lee RN, BSN, Mother of 2, MS, IBCLC, CCE, CIMI, ANLC, CKC
craniosacral therapy practitioner
www.breastfeedingalwaysbest.com

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