Lactation Basics for Home Visitors

When you help parents who are breastfeeding, they will have many questions: How should I hold my baby for feeding? Is my baby latching correctly and getting enough milk? What should I do if feeding hurts? What do I do when I go back to work?

Feel confident in your ability to answer these questions and more! This course’s 10 modules have been carefully selected with home visitors in mind. They provide the lactation background you need and teach you how to communicate that knowledge to the families in your care. The work you do is critical, and you’re in a unique position to help parents and babies. Be sure you have the preparation you need!

Included in the course:

Anatomy and Physiology of Lactation.

Understand the breast’s structures and the hormones responsible for milk production so you can help your client build and maintain an abundant milk supply. Instructor Marion “Lou” Lamb, RN, MS, IBCLC, a lactation consultant for more than 25 years, explains the topic in an easy-to-understand way.

Essentials of Positioning While Breastfeeding to Avoid Issues.

How to hold and latch their baby is one of the most common questions your clients will ask. This course prepares you to trouble-shoot nipple pain, sucking problems, poor latch, and breast refusal, with strategies for overcoming these issues. Instructor Dalaney Young, BS-MCH, IBCLC, has experience in both private practice and hospital settings and co-chairs the Virginia Breastfeeding Coalition.

Impact of Culture in Lactation Support.

Instructor Nekisha Killings, MPH, IBCLC, RLC, CBS, and Doula, explores the critical ways culture affects lactation, from the choice to feed human milk to the age of weaning and everything in between. Learn to communicate with cultural humility by combining knowledge of your client’s culture with a heartfelt sense of respect, empathy, and sensitivity.

Facilitators & Barriers to Initiation of Lactation.

Why are some parents able to meet their breastfeeding goals, while others are not? This course examines which practices push the dyad toward a successful lactation outcome and which ones operate against it, so you can help set your client up for success. Instructor Sarah Stilling, MSN, APRN, CPNP-AC/PC, IBCLC, draws on her expertise as a Nursery Hospitalist in a hospital which sees over 14,000 births a year.

Postpartum Recovery.

Whether you are seeing a client days, weeks, or months after they give birth, they are still recovering physically and psychologically. This course covers normal postpartum recovery as well as common complications across three time periods: peripartum and the first two weeks; two to six weeks; and six to 12 weeks. Instructor Alison Ward-Moore, MD, IBCLC, describes what is happening in the body at each stage as well as common emotional and psychological experiences.

Partners and Breastfeeding.

Supportive partners are critical to breastfeeding success. Rebecca Costello, IBCLC, MPH, teaches you to identify the key support person or people in your client’s life so you can include them as part of the team. Costello brings experience from a large hospital setting, birth center work, private practice, and a graduate degree in public health.

Supporting the Employed Breastfeeding Parent: A Global Perspective.

Learn how to help your clients successfully combine working and breastfeeding, including maintaining a milk supply while separated from baby, milk storage, and the childcare environment. The Co-taught by Tamika Harris, IBCLC, RLC (a lactation consultant who has also supported families across a variety of settings) and Andrea Inchaurrondo, RN, IBCLC, Midwife (a lactation consultant and midwife who specializes in helping Spanish-speaking families).

Infant Feeding in Disasters.

When disaster strikes, death rates for children under 5 are generally higher than for any other group–and non-breastfed infants are up to 20 times more likely to die. This course prepares you to help. Geraldine Fitzgerald, RN, MSN, CPNP, IBCLC, has direct experience in emergency preparedness and response, most recently in a refugee camp in Greece.

Communicating with Parents.

Years later, parents still remember specific words said to them when they were learning to breastfeed. Learn to communicate with clarity and empathy. Instructor Angela Love-Zaranka, BA, IBCLC, RLC, Program Director at LER, brings her unique insight and years of experience to this course.

Continuity of Care and the Community.

Don’t go it alone! Sekeita Lewis Johnson, DNP, FNP-BC, IBCLC, provides concrete suggestions for partnering with others in your community to help your clients access a rich network of support.

This course awards:

• 18.25 L-CERPs
• 18.25 Nursing Contact Hours