Physically assessing a baby is a critical skill for a lactation care provider to have. Depending on what background experiences brought you to the profession, this may be a familiar role for you — or it may feel very new. Either way, there are a few key points to remember to make your infant physical exam as helpful as possible for you and as comfortable and stress-free as possible for families. Below, Sarah Stilling, Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and IBCLC, shares some advice from her years of experience examining babies. Always ask permission. It sounds obvious, but it’s often skipped: Ask ..read more

Pharmacy students study hard in their education programs. By graduation, they’ve mastered a wide range of gritty scientific details and topics that leave lay people shaking their heads – but grateful that the person providing their medication knows the facts! However, one important topic is conspicuously underrepresented, filling just one lecture in most pharmacy programs. The topic? Human lactation. Fortunately, there are effective, accessible ways to add to your lactation education. If you’re a pharmacist, expanding your knowledge of human milk and breastfeeding/chestfeeding is one of the ..read more

You’re conducting an initial exam with your new lactation client when you notice scars on their breast or chest that appear to be from a surgery. You know that previous surgical procedures may impact their lactation journey, but there are so many different procedures that people have, and so many different techniques. You’ve heard a lot of information, but how much of it is truly evidence-based? Below, we’ll expose 10 common myths about lactation and plastic surgery procedures and leave you with just the facts. Our info is drawn from the vast expertise of our instructor, Katrina Mitchell, MD ..read more

Sometimes, life sneaks up on you. You think you have all the time in the world … until suddenly, you don’t. If this is where you find yourself with renewing your IBCLC certification by CERPs, we get it. And we’re here to help. Maybe you need just a few more CERPs in a certain area. Maybe you’ve attended a conference and taken a class or two, but you need several more. Or maybe life really snuck up on you and you need nearly all of them. You can still do this. No matter where the September 30 application deadline finds you, you can still make it to the finish line in time. Here’s how: If this ..read more

Does your client’s culture affect their lactation experience? You probably answered yes. Most of us are aware that factors like ethnicity, geography, and community powerfully shape the experiences of childbearing and infant feeding. But what if someone asked you: “How does culture impact lactation?” Would you have a ready answer? It’s a big question, and true understanding is the work of a lifetime. However, there are several common timepoints along the lactation journey when culture is especially important for many parents. Understanding these is a great place to start. Timepoint 1: Whether ..read more

Ninety-five hours of lactation-specific education … in some ways, it’s the heart and soul of your preparation for the IBCLC exam. Your ability to answer the 175 questions you face in the exam will depend in large part on what you learn during this part of your training. Welcome back to the Certification Playbook. No matter where today finds you on the path to becoming an IBCLC, we want to help you make 2023 a year of big steps forward. So let’s talk about the 95 hours of lactation-specific education–how to get them done, and how to get the most out of them. Angela Love-Zaranka, BA, IBCLC, RL ..read more

How much do you know about LARC – Long Acting Reversible Contraceptive methods? You are likely to field questions about them from your clients: Which ones are safe during lactation? Will they impact milk supply? What are the risks? Below, we share five reasons LARC can be a great choice for lactating families, as well as four potential unintended consequences you’ll want to know about before you counsel clients. This info is drawn from our course “Use of LARC Methods During Lactation,” where you’ll find much more–learners explore all the types of LARC, how they work, their use during lactati ..read more

Well-meaning friends tuck them into baby shower gift bags. Online new-parent forums are filled with advice about which ones work best. And by the time you see a client with nipple pain, they’re probably already using one. Nipple creams and gel dressings – they come in countless forms and formulas, over-the-counter to prescription, pharmaceutical to herbal, traditional to new technology. Unfortunately, misinformation about their use is just as common. And misuse can be worse than ineffective–it can actually make pain worse, lead to infection, or delay identification of the underlying problem ..read more

Imagine this: You’re sitting with a client you’ve been seeing for some time. Theirs has been a truly hard road. You’ve done your best, and your client has worked so hard. But the problems are still not resolved. And now, they’ve told you they think it might be time to quit. Maybe they're thinking of stopping breast/chestfeeding altogether. Maybe they’ve been triple-feeding to increase a low supply and are ready to stop pumping and accept the supply they have. Or maybe they’ve been struggling to woo a non-latching baby to the breast/chest and are weighing the decision to exclusively pump. As ..read more

We all know the journey to the IBCLC is a passion-filled one. It can also be an expensive one. College classes, lactation coursework, clinical hours, text books, review courses, exam fees – the costs can add up quickly. And, at a time when the health of parents and babies depends on diversifying the lactation care field, these expenses also add up to a lack of ethnic and racial representation among IBCLCs. At LER, we are determined to be part of the solution. SCHOLARSHIP WINDOW NOW OPEN Our Rising Tide Lactation Equity Scholarship program is designed to remove financial obstacles for Black a ..read more