I'm Elizabeth Puzar, an IBCLC in private practice. I have one of those basic unemployable degrees--Women's Studies, concentrating on health issues. I started working with moms and babies when I was 16 and volunteered in a hospital's alternative birth center. The hospital was way ahead of it's time: intervention was rare, they had LDRs, and the only thing I every saw in the nursery were boxes and equipment that overflowed from the crowded storerooms. I worked in the education department and in the clinics of several Planned Parenthood affiliates and then with pregnant and parenting teens in a special program of our local school district. I have two children, 7 and 9, and yes,they're finally weaned. Allison lasted 4 years, one month and nine days. I've run a breastpump rental station for the past nine years and am an active affiliate member of Nursing Mothers Counsel. LATEX: I always, always glove. I do it for my protection and for the protection of the little ones I see. If there's a question about a latex sensitivity, I slip a vinyl glove over the latex. I wash my gloved hands before I do any kind of oral exam. Yes, the latex gloves taste yucky (try it, ugh!). A bit of breastmilk on the glove can do wonders for the taste. I have never had a client be upset about the gloves, but I have been told they appreciate my concern for the baby. In ILCA's Standards of Practice for Lactation Consultants under implementation of clinical practice it states: The lactation consultant will exercise principles of safety, hygiene, infection control, and universal precautions (1.3.1). I've heard all ILCA members should be receiving the booklet in January. In some cultures the right hand is used for eating and the left hand is used for hygiene. I'm left-handed and never want to make the mistake of offending a family by putting my "unclean" left hand near their child's mouth. In those cases I only glove my right hand. San Jose has a very diverse population (the local high school has children from families that speak over 60 different languages at home) so I'm always extremely careful.