Isn't this someone who engages in the practice of lactation?  Couldn't this mean currently lactating or just belonging to some mammalian species?  To me it doesn't convey what we really do, which is help mothers with breastfeeding their own babies.
Now for a story about professional names and how the listener's frame of reference determines the meaning attached to them.  My daughter was born while I was in nursing school.  She was a year old when I graduated, and still breast fed, for which the secret code word in our family was "nursing".  Many, many months into my first professional employment, I said something about work which somehow jolted her into the realization that what I did at work was not what we still did in the rocking chair at bedtime.  A discussion ensued, and I learned that she thought my nursing job meant that I spent all our time apart breastfeeding other people-- babies, children, adults.  I also learned that this to her was entirely within the realm of accepted normalcy.  I don't think I even let her see me laughing about it.
I like Gonneke's laktatiekundige, but I prefer the word vroedvrouw to verloskundige for midwife-- wise woman, not delivery-competent.  If I am not mistaken, verloskundige refers to midwives and obstetricians both, but vroedvrouw is only a midwife.  In Norway, where there have not been LCs, everyone knows what an ammehjelper is-- a helper for breastfeeding.  Some people do think it means wet nurse, but it is a simple matter to set them straight.  If we start talking about lactation consultancy, we get taken down the requisite pegs in a hurry!  Then there are my colleagues, who think I don't know they call me the BF police.  I know, I just don't care.
no longer nursing, still midwifing and ammehjelping and sometimes policing
Rachel Myr
[log in to unmask]
Kristiansand, Norway

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