Dear all:

The Board of the New York Lactation Consultant Association has always included a predominance of IBCLCs who are in private practice, probably because they have a little more flexibility in their schedules.  In the past, most of these IBCLCs were also LLLL and have a rich tradition in counseling. Currently we have two Board members who are also CLCs.  Both of them were mentored for many years before becoming and IBCLC.  Never once did they present themselves as "lactation consultants" before they became IBCLC even though it was a long hard stretch of not earning as much money as they now charge as lactation consultants. Our website also lists among other breastfeeding helpers:  Certified Breastfeeding Counselors, Certified Lactation Counselor, 	Certified Lactation Educator, Certified Lactation Specialist, La Leche League Peer Counselors and Women Infants and Children Peer Counselors.

Even with a PhD in nutritional sciences and having studied professors such as Michael Latham who was one of the originators of the protest against Nestle, I dutifully waited an ENTIRE year extra because I missed the 2500 hours by 100 hours since the IBLCE had changed the 2 for 1 counting of hours that my supervisors had previously been approved for by IBCLE.  I actually had over 3000 actual hours before I sat for the boards. NYLCA is very inclusive and encourages affiliate members to attend our events and become lactation consultants and on our website we list .  I have often suggested the CLC course as a quick overview of lactation.  With my background, I cannot consider any 5 day course to be anything other than a quick overview.  Furthermore, since there is no mentoring in counseling that occurs in that 5 day course, our Internship Coordinator actively encourages all interns to spend time attending LLL meeting in the role as a mother, not a counselor.  She strongly feels and I agree.

I have worked for over 18 years in international development where many organizations were competing or collaborating to meet the needs of developing populations.  Of course there were turf wars, but I have to say that there was a tremendous amount of collaboration as well.  I have to say I am stunned into silence by the glaring defensiveness and glaring errors in the white paper entitled "Position Paper on the Comparative Roles and Training of the IBCLC and CLC compared to the Role of the Impact of the IBCLC".  Not only does this paper present a great deal of misinformation about IBCLCs, it completely ignores that La Leche League Leaders, WIC Counselors and other breastfeeding helpers. 


I have been wondering why so many of my colleagues who received the CLC in the past have gone on to become EXCELLENT IBCLCs after spending a great deal of time following mentors, while I have seen an increase in the number of individual CLCs who approach breastfeeding assistance with such arrogance that they have no idea what train wrecks they are creating among the recent crop of CLCs. The increase in the number of mop up visits I must now carry out is astounding.  To their credit, MOST of the CLCs do recognize that the CLC course ifs but a mere five days of lecture and still seek out additional supervised practice.  In fact, one of my colleagues was so incensed by the overblown claims during her CLC course that she wrote a scathing critique and also contacted the IBLCE. 

At the time, I just passed this off as one rogue instructor who was not as professional as the CLC instructors who trained many of my colleagues and two New York Lactation Consultant Association Board Members.  Now it appears that Healthy Children has endorsed a full scale onslaught on IBCLCs in their critique that we are "less qualified" than CLCs. Just to point out one of many  the false claims is that those of us who received our IBCLCs before 2012 have not acquired 90 hours of CERPs.  This is patently false because we have to acquire additional CERPs to recertify at the five year mark.  

I find the contrast between the following two documents to be stark in terms of professionalism and tone:

Go to: http://www.healthychildren.cc/index.cfm?show=clc  to download Position Paper on the Comparative Roles and Training
Go to: http://www.ilca.org/files/resources/ilca_publications/Role%20%20Impact%20of%20the%20IBCLC-webFINAL_08-15-11.pdf to download the Role of the Impact of the IBCLC

At least here in the New York City Metropolitan area we HAD in the past embraced the CLC as a reasonable stepping stone towards becoming an IBCLC and welcomed them among our members.  It seems that the CLC course does not treat IBCLCs with the same courtesy.  We are not considered qualified enough to take their "Advanced Courses" and would be required to sit through a basic five day course.  I, for one, am highly insulted. Furthermore, I feel this is a slap in the face to the unheralded hard work of private practice IBCLCs throughout the United States as well as many other breastfeeding helpers who are not even deemed worthy of being denigrated by their aggressive attempt to claim superiority.

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

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask]
COMMANDS:
1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail
2. To start it again: set lactnet mail
3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome