I am one of the Canadians on LACTNET, I live in Ottawa, Ontario. I was born
and grew up in England and came to Canada in 1968 so I am more Canadian than
British now!  I have only recently joined LACTNET and am still in shock when
I accessed my e-mail I found 65 messages!  I would like  to respond to a
number of issues that have been discussed, but first I should tell you
something about myself.  I am a nurse with a pediatric,  NICU and public
health background. Working in the NICU led me to an interest in
breastfeeding, but iIt was not until I worked with the public health
department that I realized the extent of breastfeeding mismanagement.  What
really concerned me was the conflicting and incorrect information coming
from health care providers. I am also an educator, I teach for the health
department and the University of Ottawa, School of Nursing.  The outcome of
my concerns led to some colleagues and myself applying to the Federal
Government of Canada for funding to develop, teach, disseminate to other
schools of nursing in Canada, and evaluate the impact of a course about
breastfeeding, and the impact it would have on breastfeeding.

The course has been piloted at the University of Ottawa, School of Nursing,
42 students completed the course and quite a few will be writing their IBCLC
exam this year.  I have just started teaching the course again after some
minor revisions. The course has been sent out to all the English speaking
schools of nursing in hospitals, colleges and universities in Canada 115! It
is in translation and will go out to the French speaking Universities. We
are already getting very positive feedback from those who have received it
and while they may not be able to teach it as a separate course they will
integrate material from it. At least it raises the consciousness of these
programs.  Now all we have to do is address the needs of the medical schools!

In Ottawa we have a group of IBCLC's who meet on a monthly basis for
educational purposes and to share difficult cases and common concerns. One
of the topics for our future meetings will be Breastfeeding and the
information highway!  I can see I will have much interesting material to
present.

Susan Moxley IBCLC
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