Hi everyone,

I've been involved with LLL for almost 13 years and have been a Leader for
over three years. I have recently come to the decision that I would like to
pursue a career in lactation consulting and will be taking a lactation
educator course soon as a start.

 I am a M-----a rental station and had a visit from my rep the other day. We
got to talking about Lactnet and I mentioned that I noticed that there seemed
to be quite a few LCs who were on staff at hospitals, at least in the eastern
US. In my area (the north San Francisco bay area in California) we do not
have many LCs either on staff at local hospitals (only one LC at Kaiser, none
at the other two in the area) or in private practice (none at all in private
practice that I know of). I thought maybe we were behind the times but she
felt that hospitals in California were getting away from having LCs on staff
and that these type of trends seem to start in California and then progress
to the east.

Is this a growing field only in certain areas? We used to have a private
practice LC that many of the moms in my LLL Group saw but she said she didn't
have enough clients to stay in business. As a Leader, I miss having an LC to
refer cases to and I know other Leaders here feel the same. Maybe it was just
poor business management on her part, I really don't know.

I honestly would love to have a career as an LC but also need to face the
reality that I need to do something that will make some money. My husband has
been holding down two jobs for the last 13 years while I've been home with
the children and it's been very hard on him. With my youngest starting school
in the fall, I would have a little time to further my education as a start.

Would anyone care to share their thoughts on this?

TIA,

Kim Balzer, LLLL, in Sebastopol, CA.