Assunta asked about,

<<  or is currently using a
 program for lactation consultants called The Lactation Consultant by
 Info Nation Systems out of Wisconsin?" >>

What sort of program is it?

Never heard of it -- I don't think.

And, I too passed the IBLCE exam -- 10 years!  Who woulda thunk it?  It's
interesting to look back over the last 10 years and see where we have come.
 The year I took the exam, 1987, there were about 280 taking it with me --
most of us in a big room in a hotel in Chicago.  We were still trying to
explain just WHAT a lactation consultant was and did to most people who
looked at us askance; fighting to get lactation programs into hospitals.
 Here in the Chicago area there were only one or two hospitals that had
lactation programs -- now there are many.  Now in 1997, lactation consultant
has become the "runner up hot track" health care profession as listed in US
News and World Report.  Lactation consultants are almost always quoted in
articles about breastfeeding in parent's magazines.  Just yesterday I ran
into someone at the grocery store who asked me if I was still working with
lactation.  I assured her I was, and she waxed eloquently on about her
daughters, the second of whom is nursing her 2nd child, how well it was going
and how much her daughter enjoyed it.  And how she, the grandmother, was SO
delighted because she had nursed HER babies....  And I thought, "Yup, this is
how it should be....and if there were more stories like this, there would be
less need for people like me...."

I'll have to say a public thank you to my son Timothy, age 13.  He is
"responsible" for me becoming an LC -- first of all because I was literally
on my way to midwifery school (walking down the street to Rush University to
my interview) when I realized I was pregnant with him....and secondly,
because he was an absolutely DREADFUL breastfeeder.  Amazing how the Lord can
move you into a different path....and I know this is the right one for me.

Enough maundering -- congratulations to every one of you who passed the IBLCE
exam and can now put those coveted initials behind your name....

Warmly,

Jan Barger