The Curriculum

• Effective breastfeeding promotion
• Prenatal breast assessment
• Cultural influences on infant feeding choices
• Importance of breastfeeding for the teenager
• Getting breastfeeding started with evidence-based care
• Why midwifery care makes sense for good breastfeeding outcomes
• The effects of hospital routines on early breastfeeding
• Predictable newborn behaviors
• Importance of positioning and latch in early breastfeeding
• Assessment of newborn latch and suck
• Supplements for breastfed babies – when are they needed?
• Influence of commercial baby food industries
• Understanding the letters: IBCLC, IBLCE, ILCA
• Maternal nutrition
• Hyperbilirubinemia
• Breastfeeding challenges and problems – engorgement, sore nipples
• How we communicate with breastfeeding families
• Communication skills – case studies
• Liability and ethics about infant feeding
• Maternal medications and breastfeeding
• On-going breastfeeding problems – yeast, mastitis, abscess, plugged ducts
• Breastfeeding multiples
• Breastfeeding the premature infant
• Relationships in the breastfeeding family
• Culture and the conflict with human biology
• Care of the slow to gain, poorly gaining infant
• Relactation and nursing an adopted baby
• The grief of a failed breastfeeding experience
• Skills labs
• The meaning of family-centered care
• Setting up a lactation service
• Postpartum depression and breastfeeding
• Breastfeeding and the working mother
• The real meaning of "Baby Friendly"
• Breastfeeding the older child
• When breastfeeding ends

Course Notes

CEUs are approved from:

• International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners, Provider Number: CLT108-4       45 CERPs (43L & 2 E) (For IBCLCs only)                          
• 45 instructional hours on the IBLCE Exam Blueprint (for preparation for first IBLCE exam)
• Commission on Dietetic Registration, 45 CPE hours, Category II (For RDs only)
• Provider approved by California Board of Registered Nursing, Provider Number: CEP 141275   54 contact hours (50 minute hours) (For RNs only)

Institutional discounts and scholarships available. Please phone Simkin Center for more info.

Textbooks: There are many excellent reference books available.  If you wish to purchase books before the course (click here for information on where to obtain texts), we recommend starting with one of the following:

• Breastfeeding and Human Lactation (2004) by Jan Riordan
• The Breastfeeding Answer Book (2003) by Nancy Mohrbacher and Julie Stock
• Breastfeeding: A Guide for the Medical Profession by Ruth Lawrence (this book is very "medical" in its writing and message)

Instructor

Instructor: The Simkin Center Professional Education in Breastfeeding and Lactation is lead by board-certified lactation consultants:

Molly Pessl BSN, IBCLC
Ginna Wall MN, RN, IBCLC
Marie Witherell RN, ICCE, IBCLC

Contact Us:
Call us at (425) 602-3361