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Home › Articles › Breastfeeding Basics › Helping Times Two

Helping Times Two

Careers in Lactation

By Kelly Burgess

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Amy Cobbley of Houston, Texas, learned everything she could about breastfeeding before her daughter was born. She read lots of books and magazine articles and researched the subject on the Internet. But when her daughter, Kayla, was born via Cesarean section, things didn't go quite as smoothly as Cobbley had hoped.

"Kayla and I were separated for four hours after she was born, and when they finally brought her to me, she seemed to have trouble latching on," Cobbley says. "I was so exhausted and couldn't get it to feel right, so I finally contacted the hospital lactation consultant. She showed me how to get Kayla to latch on properly, and we didn't have any problems after that. Without her I wouldn't have known what to do."

A Rising Field
Cobbley was lucky to be on the cusp of a new trend in maternity care: having lactation consultants available to new mothers in maternity wards. Sometimes, these consultants work outside the hospital and are on call if they're needed. Other times, they are part of the hospital staff, usually a maternity ward nurse who also is certified as a lactation consultant. Increasingly, though, hospitals are bringing in full-time lactation consultants not only to help new mothers, but to encourage breastfeeding before the baby's even born.

At Memorial Hospital in York, Pa., Wendy Shore, IBCLC, coordinates the services of the Lactation Resource Center. These services include a breastfeeding workshop, inpatient and outpatient counseling, ongoing infant weight assessments, breast pump rental, a nursing mothers' support group and a nursing mother volunteer program where other nursing mothers are available to support new moms.

"This is an exciting time for breastfeeding professionals and other consultants, because the realization that breast is best is catching on in a big way,"Shore says. "It's also becoming part of the curriculum for doctors, but until we've graduated enough with a good working knowledge of breastfeeding, there's a real need for lactation consultants."

Like most lactation professionals, Shore breastfed her three children, and her negative experiences without any support from her doctors or any knowledgeable family members were what led her to become certified in the field so she'd be more qualified to help other mothers.

A Successful Campaign
It all started with the venerable La Leche League
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