Anjelica Malone, CLEC

Anjelica Malone is a lactation educator counselor, childbirth educator, and a birth and postpartum doula serving women in the Seattle area. Anjelica is a former Third Culture Kid turned Global Mama, having lived in and traveled throughout the mainland USA, Europe, Asia, Puerto Rico, and Guam. She enlisted into the United States Coast Guard in 2004 where she served as a Health Services Technician (Corpsman) both on land and afloat. In 2010 Anjelica began serving as a mentor to refugee and lower income women having either their first birth in the USA or a high-risk pregnancy. During that time she began to see the importance of providing women with culturally sensitive and comprehensive perinatal education and support. Anjelica has lived among and worked extensively with women of diverse backgrounds, religions, and cultures. In August 2017 she released her first book, Milk Boss 101: The Modern Breastfeeding Journal & Guide, which helps women plan for and experience a breastfeeding and postpartum journey that aligns with their lifestyle and unique needs.

Culturally-sensitive lactation support: serving global families

This talk discusses building trust (community involvement, social proof, building genuine friendships with community members), understanding the Culture (social norms, understanding slang, clarifying terminology, popular beliefs) collaborating with traditions (peer to peer communication, incorporating solutions into tradition, affirming beliefs, gently presenting evidence) and releasing superiority (recognizing your prejudices, privilege, & preferences).

Alice Farrow, BSc, Cert PPH, IBCLC

Alice Farrow is an IBCLC, writer, speaker, and infant feeding and health equity advocate. Based in Rome, Italy, who has spoken around the world on LGBTQI health inequities, gender diversity, gender inclusive language, lactation support for infants born with a cleft lip and palate, and barriers to entry to the lactation profession (in particular, those experienced by non-US candidates).

Alice was a plenary speaker at the 2017 ILCA conference in Toronto, Canada, presenting on gender diversity, language and inclusion, and a parallel session on breastfeeding/chestfeeding with a cleft lip and palate. Alice’s advocacy work includes participating in the 2014 Lactation Summit, the 2016 LEAC Global Forum, and publishing a groundbreaking article Lactation Support and the LGBTQI community as part of the Journal of Human Lactation’s Special Issue on ‘Equity’. Alice writes for the Language of Inclusion blog and the Cleft Lip and Palate Breastfeeding website, run an online support network for LGBTQI health professionals and allies, Embracing Diversity in Reproductive Health, Birth and Infant Feeding, and runs the Want to be an IBCLC? support groups for aspiring lactation consultants.

Alice is currently an undergraduate student with the Open University (UK) completing a bachelor of science with a focus on public health and public health promotion.

Language, lactation and the LGBTQI community

The acronym LGBTQI contains 6 letters which refer to 6 different identities referring to people who are commonly marginalized by their sexuality, gender or sex. It is increasingly recognised that LGBTQI people suffer health disparities. Although there is little research into lactation care and the LGBTQI community, the available research and anecdotal reports, along with research from other health fields, can help us form questions on how well our profession is prepared and able to provide care to this diverse and complex population. Many of the barriers faced by LGBTQI people accessing health services are created by language, in particular language that is reflective of heteronormative, cisnormative and endosex assumptions. These terms will be examined and explained, and real-life examples will be used to illustrate how these assumptions do occur in the field of lactation and how they create barriers to care. Attendees will then be encouraged to examine their own work and practice, from an LGBTQI perspective, in order to seek out assumptions and barriers and ineffective or harmful language contained in websites, intake forms, literature and research, images and even body language. Solutions will be suggested that can be individualized to each practitioner’s own culture, language and community and attendees will be encouraged to apply these solutions within a short time frame to their own practice.

Anna Brauch, BA, CBS

Anna Brauch became a nursing parent in 2013. They are a La Leche League Leader, Certified Breastfeeding Specialist and IBCLC candidate preparing to sit for the exam this year. With a passion for advancing equity in lactation and infant feeding support, Anna also acts as Equity Advocate for La Leche League of Minnesota and the Dakotas, and works as a parenting group facilitator and breastfeeding/chestfeeding educator for the Queer Birth Project. Anna holds a BA in Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies from the University of Minnesota. They have presented on topics related to feminism and queer cultural studies for the National Femme Conference, the Experimental College of the Twin Cities, the Midwest BLGTA College Conference, La Leche League, and the Queer Birth Project. Anna lives in Minneapolis with their two preschoolers.

Techniques for supporting parents with breastfeeding aversion, past trauma, and gender dysphoria

There are a variety of reasons why parents may face emotional challenges to nursing, breastfeeding or chestfeeding their babies, which may be related to identity, history, and mental health. This talk explains how complex socio-emotional issues become barriers to nursing and discusses a variety of techniques for providing support as a lactation advocate to families facing these challenges.

Robyn Roche-Paull, BSN, RNC-MNN, IBCLC

Robyn Roche-Paull is the award-winning author of the comprehensive book Breastfeeding in Combat Boots: A Survival Guide to the Successful Breastfeeding While Serving in the Military, and the Executive Director of the non-profit ‘Breastfeeding in Combat Boots’. She is a Registered Nurse and IBCLC (International Board Certified Lactation Consultant) as well as a US Navy Veteran who successfully breastfed her son while on active duty as an aircraft mechanic. Robyn has been working with breastfeeding mothers for over 18 years and currently works at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington.

Robyn can be found lecturing at breastfeeding conferences and military bases around the United States and overseas. She maintains her website and Facebook page, writes for various blogs and magazines and helps active duty military mothers worldwide via email and Skype. Robyn lives in Graham, WA with her husband of 23 years, a Retired Chief Petty Officer of the US Navy and her 3 teen-aged children. Visit her at www.breastfeedingincombatboots.com.

Body modification and breastfeeding

Piercings and tattoos are found around the world and across various cultures, but what effect do they have in regards to breastfeeding?  Are they safe for the breastfeeding dyad? This presentation will explore the intersection of body modifications and breastfeeding by providing a review of the available literature, a discussion of why women choose to alter their bodies through body modifications, evidence-based information on the safety and different types of body modifications available, the effect of body mods on breastfeeding, and how to identify and reduce any potential barriers to successful breastfeeding with tattoos and piercings.

Tiffany Gallagher, BA, IBCLC, RLC

Tiffany (Tipper) Gallagher is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, mother of four, and all-around nerd about a whole lot of things. After obtaining a writing degree in 2004, she worked in corporate America as a desktop publisher and editor for accounting and human resources firms, brought forth four new beings into the world in a span of 4 years, and found her passion in lactation on the first day of her Certified Lactation Counselor class. A friend began calling her “The Boob Geek,” and the name stuck. Tipper passed the IBLCE exam in 2015 after attending the University of California—San Diego’s lactation consultant certificate program.

In her private lactation consulting practice, Tipper provides in-home visits for families who need help with breastfeeding as well as prenatal and postnatal education in private and group settings. She is also a lactation consultant on staff at Hennepin County Medical Center, a Baby-Friendly designated facility with a level III NICU, that serves the needs of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, and its surrounding suburbs.

In addition to her clinical work, Tipper melds her passions for writing, advocacy, and sharing evidence-based information by blogging at www.theboobgeek.com, serving as a subject-matter expert for authors, and presenting at conferences. Tipper served as the technical editor and advisor for Jessica Shortall’s Work. Pump. Repeat.; volunteers as the webinar team leader as part of the International Lactation Consultant Association’s Professional Development Committee; and works with the Minnesota Breastfeeding Coalition as part of the Steering Committee and website subcommittee. Tipper is a member of the International Lactation Consultant Association and the United States Lactation Consultant Association.

Meet them where they’re at: supporting pumping and bottle-feeding

The unique needs of families leads to unique infant-feeding plans, and exclusive breastfeeding is not always a desire or option. In the USA, returning to work within months or even weeks is common. Some families may also make, or have no choice to, pump exclusively; use a combination of breastmilk and formula; or formula feed. This presentation will review best practices for optimizing milk supply while pumping; incorporating bottlefeeding into the breastfeeding relationship; and formula preparation. The session will advocate for positioning IBCLCs as infant-feeding specialists and increasing duration of breastfeeding through compassionate, family-centered care.

Cynthia Good Mojab, MS, IBCLC

Cynthia Good Mojab is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, author, consultant, and internationally recognized speaker. She is also Certified in Acute Traumatic Stress Management and is a member of the National Center for Crisis Management and the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress. She focuses on issues related to birth, lactation, culture, psychology, ethics, and equity. Cynthia has a strong interest in the field of lactational psychology, the name of which she coined in the Journal of Human Lactation in 2006. She brings the evidence, insights, and tools of psychology and lactation consulting to her unique presentations, many of which present information and teach skills that are essential to understanding and effectively responding to the complex psychosocial realities of families living in diverse contexts. She is the Director of LifeCircle Consulting, where she provides education, training, and consultation services to individuals and organizations seeking to increase cultural competence/humility, dismantle institutional oppression, more effectively respond to perinatal mental health challenges, and engage ethically in their work. She also serves as Education Manager at the International Lactation Consultant Association. She formerly served as a mental health care provider in private practice, served as Research Associate in the Publications Department of La Leche League International, was a member of Mothering Magazine’s Expert Panel, and was on the faculty of Parkland College where she taught both statistics and abnormal psychology. She has authored, contributed to, and provided editorial review of numerous publications. She has experience working with the full spectrum of lactation in diverse contexts—from healthy, well-supported parents of healthy, full-term newborns to dyads coping with perinatal mental health issues to adoptive parents inducing lactation for nurslings with special needs.

Ethics, culture and lactation: essential concepts and principles for lactation specialists

This session introduces ethical and cultural concepts and principles that are essential for ethical decision making in cross-cultural lactation counseling and consulting settings anywhere in the world. It includes a review of cultural dimensions which impact lactation and lactation counseling and consulting; principles within the Code of Professional Conduct that mandate cultural competence; how ethical issues interact with non-universal, culturally-based values and beliefs in lactation counseling and consulting; and fundamental principles that lactation specialists must apply when working to resolve ethical dilemmas in cross-cultural settings. A case study illustrates the application of these ethical and cultural concepts and principles.

Tanya Cassidy, PhD, AM, MA, BA

Dr Tanya Cassidy is affiliated with the Department of Anthropology at Maynooth University, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Criminology at the University of Windsor in Canada, and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), UK, where she held an EU Horizon 2020 Marie Sklodowska Curie Action (MSCA) fellowship. Born in Canada, She received her PhD from the University of Chicago, USA, with a dissertation which was an ethnographic exploration of gender, family and alcohol in Ireland. Following a maternity/career break her research now connects her long-standing theorisation of consumption and identity with a more urgent public policy agenda concerning premature birth and infant feeding.

Banking on milk: an ethnography of donor human milk banking

This talk discusses one of the most detailed interdisciplinary ethnographies of donor human milk banking ever conducted. Despite the growth of human milk banks in recent years, the relative unfamiliarity of their work among the general public still leads to confusion and sometimes even revulsion (the so-called ‘ick’ factor), and this is complicated by the commercial aspects of human milk banking, particularly in the USA. The future of human milk banking will involve not merely involve rational calculations of cost, risk and plausible benefit, but far vaguer, more pervasive and more visceral attitudes to the permeable human body. Banking on Milk seeks, therefore, to inform discussions of how the gendered body is used to define supposedly public and supposedly private realms of social and asocial experience.

Sally Dowling, PhD, MPH, MFPH, MA, BA, RMN, PG Cert (TLHE)

Dr Sally Dowling is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK where she teaches evidence-based practice and research methods to nurses and other health professionals. She trained as a mental health nurse but the majority of her National Health Service (NHS) career was spent working in sexual health and public health. She gained her PhD in 2013, titled Exploring the experiences of women who breastfeed long-term. She has published from this in a range of health, social science and breastfeeding journals and books. She is interested in thinking about social and cultural influences on women’s experiences of breastfeeding and is currently working on breastmilk sharing projects.

Social experiences of breastfeeding: building bridges between research, practice and policy through running an ESRC-funded seminar series in the UK

This talk focuses on the ESRC-funded seminar series that ran in the UK during 2015 and 2016. It will cover the rationale for applying for the funding, running the seminars and focus on how successful it was at ‘building bridges between research, practice and policy’. Feedback from attendees will also be considered. Since the end of the seminar series a number of collaborations, publications and other outputs have been successful and these will be outlined and discussed.

Using liminality and stigma to think about mothers’ experiences of long-term breastfeeding

This talk gives an overview of research into long-term breastfeeding and then talks specifically about Dr Dowling’s research project. In this, women were interviewed (face-to-face and online); in addition participant observation in breastfeeding support groups were carried out – with the aim of understanding more about the experiences of breastfeeding long-term. The research was conducted from an insider perspective. Findings are discussed in relation to the concepts of stigma and liminality (not being one thing or another, being ‘betwixt and between’).

Clare Relton, PhD, MSc, BA (Hons)

Dr Clare Relton is a senior research fellow in public health at the University of Sheffield and a senior lecturer in clinical trials at Queen Mary’s University London. After her first degree in Philosophy she spent 10+ years working as a homeopath in the NHS and in private medicine, specialising in women’s health. Following her interest in research and with the support of an award from the Department of Health she obtained her PhD in 2009. Her PhD thesis focused on how to best design practical trials of interventions to improve health. Since then she has been designing and running a wide range of practical trials of interventions to that aim to improve health. Most recently Dr Relton led the 5 year NOSH Project which explored the potential of offering financial incentives to breastfeed in areas with low breastfeeding rates in the UK. The results of the cluster randomised controlled trial were published in December 2017.

Exploring the potential of cash transfers in areas with low breastfeeding rates

The five year NOSH ‘Vouchers for breastfeeding’ project explored the potential of offering financial incentives for breastfeeding in areas with low rates. Clare describes the ethical and practical challenges encountered during the project and the results of the randomised trial with 10,010 mother infant-dyads. The talk concludes with a discussion of the implications for future infant feeding practice, policy and research.

Anahita Esbati, RM, MMID

Anahita Esbati is a PhD candidate from the University of Sunshine Coast, Australia. Anahita is a Midwife, tutor, and researcher passionate about research regarding how to improve breastfeeding rates. Moved to Australia in 2006 and completed Master’s degree in Midwifery in 2011. Worked in Maternity settings in Middle East and Australia. Had a journal publication in 2017 about publicly available legislation, policies and guidelines related to breastfeeding and the Baby Friendly Health Initiative in Australia: a qualitative document analysis.

Baby Friendly Health Initiative – a complex initiative. What we can learn from other countries

The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) is an initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) to promote, support and maintain breastfeeding . The BFHI has two parts: 1) the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding, which highlight practices that support the initiation and maintenance of breastfeeding in every maternity facility and 2) the WHO International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, which sets the standard expected of health facilities in relation to the promotion of breastmilk substitutes. The literature confirms the benefits of implementing the BFHI, so identifying ways to increase uptake and implementation is important. Literature around the complexity of the BFHI implementation suggests the initiative is multi-faceted and complex . This complexity is mainly related to cultural factor, support, and knowledge improvement. This presentation will talk about these factors as well as what we can learn from other countries in relation to uptake and implementation of the BFHI.

Doreen Mazakpwe-Ssemujju, MBChB(MUK)

Dr Doreen Mazakpwe is married with two beautiful children and lives in Kampala. She is a registered general practitioner in Uganda and has been a medical doctor for 11 years. Her role in supporting mothers in breastfeeding started in 2013 after her first baby. This is when she realized that breastfeeding support in the hospital is a health service that was hardly existent. Currently, she is pursuing further studies in Human Nutrition and becoming an IBCLC. Her work is mainly to lay a foundation for lactation consultancy in Uganda, the East African region and the African continent. She works part time in a private hospital, TMR International Hospital where she facilitates and teaches prenatal classes and does Postpartum Lactation reviews to ensure that mothers get all the professional breastfeeding help available, while still in hospital. She also runs a business called Naturally Nourish which provides lactation consultancy services to breastfeeding mothers and their families.

Where there is no IBCLC

Breastfeeding promotion has ensured that the Ugandan mother is well informed about the wise and healthy choice to breastfeed, and as a result breastfeeding is an unquestionable feeding option for most mothers. However, improper management of breastfeeding during the hospital stay sabotages those efforts. Pre-service training in the medical and nursing schools is still sub-optimal and yet health workers qualifying from these schools are expected to provide breastfeeding support to mothers. Therefore, there is a disconnect and discontinuity in provision of breastfeeding support. The aggressive marketing of breast milk substitutes is growing and spreading fast especially with the advent of social media. The mother who dwells in urban areas is their likely target because she can afford to buy their products. How then does one manage to stay interested in breastfeeding with such negative influences? Dr Mazakpwe-Ssemujju has started a journey to introduce lactation professionals as part of the clinical team caring for mother-baby dyads.

Christine Staricka, BS, IBCLC, RLC, CCE

Christine Staricka is a registered, International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant and Certified Childbirth Educators. Christine worked as a hospital-based IBCLC for 10 years and has over 17 years experience in breastfeeding support. She currently works for BreastfeedLA, the breastfeeding task force for the county of Los Angeles, as the Policy and Education Program Manager. Her private practice specializes in preterm infants and milk production management, and she is very well-educated on the intricacies of assisting mothers of babies with oral restrictions. She is the Facilitator of Baby Cafe© Bakersfield and volunteers her services as an IBCLC to the mothers who attend. She and a colleague teach professional lactation education courses.

Christine is currently the President of the United States Lactation Consultant Association (USLCA). She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management from the University of Phoenix, Arizona, USA. She has been married for 24 years and has 3 wonderful daughters.

Baby Café model: opening the doors to increase breastfeeding duration

Although there are many strategies which have been found successful at increasing the rate of breastfeeding initiation, fewer strategies exist for the community to ensure the continuation of breastfeeding throughout the normal course of child development. The Baby Café model of care is one such strategy, combining access to informed, educated providers with the peer contact upon which many new parents thrive. This session will demonstrate how one community in a rural area of California has improved breastfeeding duration and the community environment of breastfeeding and other important developmental practices through implementing a local, licensed Baby Café.

Lisa H Amir, MBBS, MMed, PhD, IBCLC, FABM, FILCA

Associate Professor Lisa Amir is a general practitioner and lactation consultant. She has been continually certified as an IBCLC since 1989. She works in breastfeeding medicine at The Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia and in private practice. She is a Principal Research Fellow at the Judith Lumley Centre, La Trobe University, Australia. She is the author of over 80 peer-reviewed articles, and the primary author of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine’s clinical protocol on mastitis. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Breastfeeding Journal.

Taking a history in a breastfeeding consultation: it’s not a checklist!

In this talk, Dr Lisa Amir explains how to take a history in a breastfeeding consultation. Developing rapport, listening and asking the right questions are essential to helping women experiencing challenges with breastfeeding.

Sara-Chana Silverstein, IBCLC, AHG (RH)

Sara-Chana Silverstein is an International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant, classical homeopath, master herbalist, businesswoman, wife and mother of seven children. She is a highly sought-after public speaker, presenting an array of topics in an intelligent, compelling, and exciting way. Her specialty is using herbs in breastfeeding.

She has worked with over 12 thousand breastfeeding mothers over the past 25 years specializing in sore nipples, chronic yeast, failure to thrive, low milk supply, over productions and integrating alternative medicine with conventional medicine. Her specialty is the use of Herbal Medicine while breastfeeding. She travels the country doing TV segments for ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox news shows. She also guests lectures at Medical schools teaching pediatric residents about breastfeeding. She is author of the upcoming book, MOODTOPIA: tame your moods, de-stress, using herbs aromatherapy and more.

She is a consultant to many obstetricians, midwives and pediatricians in the New York metropolitan and Los Angeles area, and she guides mothers in how to ask the proper questions of their doctors to ensure that they and their children receive the most appropriate and comprehensive healthcare.

Herbs and breastfeeding – what IBCLCs need to know

85 percent of integrative medicine in the USA is botanical preparations. In the past 20 years public dissatisfaction with the cost of prescription medications, combined with an interest in returning to natural or organic remedies, has led to an increase in herbal medicine use. People are either self medicating with herbs or are working with professional herbalists and the numbers are increasing. This presentation discusses each herb that is often being used by breastfeeding mothers. Their benefits, contraindications and allow the breastfeeding professional to be informed and knowledgeable.

Nicola O’Byrne, RN, IBCLC

Nicola O’Byrne is an IBCLC since 2005 in Dublin, Ireland. After qualifying as a general and paediatric nurse in 1990, she worked as in cardiology and Intensive Care in the main children’s hospital in Dublin. Her primary love has always been babies and after completing her NICU training she then worked in a level 3B NICU. Nicola took the giant leap into private practice in late 2005 and started teaching classes and providing lactation care for mothers and babies in both clinic and home settings. She also loves teaching and runs seminars for professionals and voluntary breastfeeding groups.

Nicola was involved in the start up of a frenotomy clinic and works there as a part-time IBCLC. She has been a Past President of the Association of Lactation Consultants in Ireland and also as the Irish ILCA partners representative. She is the proud mother of 5 breastfed children and lives with her husband and children in Dublin.

Tongue tie, Ireland and breastfeeding

This presentation will cover infant suck, how tongue tie effects breastfeeding and the IBCLC’s role in a frenotomy clinic. Nicola will also discuss the frenotomy clinic she helped establish in 2014 and audit results.

Sandra Cole, RNC, IBCLC

Sandra Cole is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant with over 20 years of progressive experience in this field. She currently serves as a staff Lactation Consultant at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women and Newborns in San Diego, CA, which delivers over 8,000 babies a year. She previously was in private practice as a Lactation Consultant and private duty Baby Nurse, which involved extensive work with premature infants overcoming developmental challenges. In addition, she is certified as a High Risk NICU Nurse as well as an ECMO specialist, and has worked in several Level 3 NICU units (caring for the most vulnerable premature infants) as Charge Nurse, Preceptor, and Transport Nurse. Sandra is also the author of Breastfeeding Challenges Made Easy for Late Preterm Infants.

Identifying and addressing breastfeeding challenges for late pre-term infants

Breastfeeding late preterm infants usually presents significant challenges for families. Knowing what to tell the parents of these babies about why these challenges exist, counseling them about realistic milestones, and demonstrating the correct use of specific breastfeeding tools may have a dramatic effect on the success of their breastfeeding outcome.

Alia Macrina Heise, IBCLC, CLE, CPD

Alia Macrina Heise has worked in the field of lactation since 2004. She is considered the international authority on the topic of dysphoric milk ejection reflex (D-MER). She has been the forerunner in identifying, naming and investigating the anomaly of dysphoria with milk ejection reflex since 2007. She has spoken on the subject at many notable conferences, has given several interviews on the subject and has been published through her work on a case study about D-MER for the International Breastfeeding Journal. In 2017 she released the first book on the subject. Alia’s passion and enthusiasm for the topic of D-MER are evident in the energy that she demonstrates in her presentations and the novelty of new information on a subject that is not yet well known or understood by many makes for an engaging and interesting presentation. Outside of her work with D-MER, she is also in private practice as an IBCLC in the Finger Lakes region of New York State, USA. She lives in a small rural town where she enjoys country living with her three children.

Dysphoric milk ejection reflex and the breastfeeding mother

The presentation will explain and define what D-MER is and what it is not. It will distinguish how D-MER presents and its variances. Furthermore, the presentation will offer the current hypothesis about the possible cause of D-MER and suggested treatments. Additionally, the speaker will describe how to best help a mother with D-MER and propose the possible future for further understanding about the condition.

Carol Bartle, RN, RM, IBCLC, PGDip (Child Advocacy), MHSc

Carol Bartle has a nursing, midwifery and lactation consultant background and works as a maternal, infant and child health promoter with the Canterbury Breastfeeding Advocacy and Information Service at Te Puawaitanga ki Otautahi Trust. She also works as a policy analyst with the New Zealand College of Midwives. Carol studied at the University of Otago and has a post- graduate diploma in Child Advocacy and a Masters in Health Sciences. Major interests include women’s health, breastfeeding and infant feeding, ethics, human rights, infant feeding in emergencies, climate change, and health policy/politics.

Supporting incarcerated women to breastfeed: Fragilities, strengths, care, commitment and strategies

Supporting inmate mothers to remain with their infants can facilitate maternal bonding as well as providing the potential for a reduction in the likelihood of recidivism, and an end to the cycle of intergenerational incarceration. Sheila Kitzinger described pregnancy, birth and motherhood as offering opportunities for maternal growth in understanding and maturation. Where there is no alternative to maternal incarceration, protecting promoting and supporting breastfeeding within prison mother-baby units is best practice, and in the best interest of the infant, the mother, the family and society. This session will explore the development of mother-baby units, the supports and barriers for breastfeeding behind bars, experiences within prison units, and hopes and possibilities for the future.

Rukhsana Haider, MBBS, PhD, MSc, IBCLC

Rukhsana Haider is a physician, a public health nutritionist, and an international Board certified lactation consultant, with an MSc in Human Nutrition and a PhD in Public Health Nutrition from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK. She is the Founder and Chairperson of the Training and Assistance for Health & Nutrition Foundation (TAHN) in Bangladesh. She is currently Co-Chair of the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) Steering Committee, and Chair, Civil Society Alliance for Scaling Up Nutrition (CSA for SUN) in Bangladesh.

Dr Haider was formerly Regional Adviser, Nutrition at WHO’s South-East Asia Regional Office in India, from 2001-2006, responsible for 11 countries. She continues to be a resource person for Unicef, WHO and several non-government organizations, both internationally and nationally. Her research projects have mostly focused on peer counselling on breastfeeding and complementary feeding and she has several publications on these topics.

Supporting female factory workers to breastfeed exclusively

This presentation will discuss the experience of promoting and supporting breastfeeding in Bangladesh and support for employed women to breastfeed exclusively. The problems that women employed in factories in Bangladesh face when they are pregnant and after giving birth will be discussed followed by the results of a project where community-based peer counsellors encouraged and supported factory workers to practice exclusive breastfeeding.

Mieke Saras, RN Obgyn, IBCLC, Doula, Sensitherapist

Mieke Saras has worked as an RN in maternity, delivery rooms and obstetric high care departments of several hospitals in the Netherlands, for 20 years. Since 2000 she has worked as a lactation consultant (IBCLC) in hospitals and maternity care centers and for the last five years in her own private practice. In addition, she has educated and deepened herself as a sensitherapist, doula, energetic bodyworker and in pre- and perinatal psychology.

In her own private practice ‘Natuurlijk MANA’ she combines knowledge and experiences from all these worlds. She offers individual holistic guidance to (prospective) parents about conscious conception and pregnancy, natural birth, breastfeeding and attachment parenting. She also provides courses, workshops and training for parents and health care professionals. Awareness and consciousness play an important role in her approaches. Mieke is married and breastfed her four children for many years.

Her wish is to empower mothers, fathers, children and caregivers and to give them confidence in their instinct and intuition. Physically and mentally strong, capable and beautifully well-equipped for birth, breastfeeding and parenting. To contribute to the warmest welcome possible, of a new human child.

Baby consciousness and breastfeeding

Pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding – as old as humanity, but still one of the greatest mysteries on earth. The body of a mother instinctively and intuitively knows how to birth and breastfeed her baby. Babies also have an unprecedented awareness and know how to drink from mother’s breast. In our science society, however, breastfeeding and lactation have become increasingly cognitive and with ‘technical’ interventions. Many parents and caregivers want to understand with their minds why, how and what to do. As a result, we risk losing contact with our body wisdom. Natural processes are disrupted and breastfeeding often gets unnecessarily complicated.

In the vulnerable beginning of new life, information is not so much understood by cognitive knowledge, but mainly by intuitive and emotional communication. This continues in the contact between parents and child, attachment and lactation. Babies respond directly to what goes on in their mother and environment. Babies can often give us answers to problems with breastfeeding, if we approach it from the child’s perspective. How can we, as lactation consultants, from our own primal wisdom, without many words and actions, communicate with the instinct and intuition of the mother? How do we use the awareness and behavior of the child? So mother and child are both empowered in their inner knowledge and through which breastfeeding problems often resolve quickly and effortlessly. On the basis of Mieke’s own quest, background information and casuistry, she answers these questions, and invites you to your own personal quest.