I would like to make a couple of suggestions regarding a PhD in lactation.

When I first entered this profession I thought it would be primarily nutritionists and dieticians
because of the long term relationship of breastfeeding to nutrition.  I was shocked and am still
surprised that this remains primarily the domain of hospital nurses in the United States.  I think
hospital nurses play a hugely important role because most deliveries in the US are in the hospital.
They can make or break the experience and, as a private LC, I am sure that there are many women
we don't see because someone helped these women get off to a good start in the hospital or
conversely, some women didn't get enough help and tossed in the towel before they would have
seen us.

Nevertheless, the nursing relationship endures far longer than the short 2-4 days that a woman
spends in a US hospital.  To understand lactation, I really feel that it is important to understand
the full process beyond just getting it started.

Perhaps because I worked internationally, all of my nutrition classes started with breastfeeding.  It
was primary, fundamental and infused in just about every single nutrition class I ever took for my
Masters and for my PhD.  All of my professors, had at one point or another done research on
lactation.  For many of them, this was their primary research interest.

The one little piece that was missing was the focus on the how to do it with individual women.
The studies that they conducted were either on the benefits or on the larger-scale public health
measures that improve breastfeeding success.

The two places that come to mind for me are:

UC Davis, which has a number of very good lactation researchers
Cornell, which also has a number of very good lactation researchers and offers majors and minors
in Community Nutrition and International Nutrition & Clinical Nutrition.  Combining the two with
one as a major and the other as a minor would be an excellent combination.

Both have plenty of complementary courses that would round out the education.  The one missing
piece would be mentoring with an IBCLC.  We all know that Diane Weissinger is in Ithaca and I'm
sure there are some excellent IBCLCs in UC Davis.  When I was working on my doctorate at Cornell,
we all joked about the Davis Super Moms who were part of the research for revamping the
breastfeeding charts.


We definitely could use more people doing research on the nuts and bolts of managing
breastfeeding.

Best, Susan E. Burger, MHS, PhD, IBCLC

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