How to become a lactation consultant?

How do i become a lactation consultant?

• i live in west tennessee and am looking for a career change. but i can not really find any VERY useful information. can anyone tell me where to begin, or at least websites that would be useful for my area. it would not be practical for me to travel too far. possibly internet classes? or any insight into this particular career. please help! only serious answers please...already asked this and did not get much help... :(

• Answer:

  To become an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, you must pass the exam given by the IBCLE. There are a few pathways to getting to the exam; you have to either be a health care professional working in maternal-child health or as a breastfeeding support counselor (as defined by IBCLE)....you can graduate from an accredited breastfeeding program at least a year long and involving clinical practice assignments...or you can be under the tutoring of a current IBCLC, but that application must be accepted by the IBCLE ahead of time. You'll need to have anywhere from 300 to 1,000 hours of lactation-specific clinical experience to qualify...all that must be in the immediate five years before you take the exam. You'll also have to have 45 to 90 hours of education in human lactation and breastfeeding. This website may help: http://www.iblce.org/eligibilityRequirements.php?region=am Internet classes won't help too much, you need to interact with real-life moms and babies and figure out what's going on. A lactation consultant who doesn't know what's wrong is worse that being on your own. If you want to get in some practice to see if it's something that's for you, consider attempting to join La Leche League (a community-based support group for breastfeeding women) as a group leader. They require that you have experience nursing at least one of your kids for a minimum of 9 months, since most of their work is emotional support with a little bit of technical expertise thrown in. Lactation consultants are usually the last people contacted with a new mom is desperate to make breastfeeding work. Expect the mom to have tried lots of different things, possibly be taking different medications and OTC remedies, and to be emotionally unstable. Often these women are in physical pain on top of everything else. Expect to spend at least two hours with each patient, taking a detailed history of each one and being able to spot possible abnormalities with the breast and the baby's facial structures (think tongue-tie, downs, cleft palate), etc. Be prepared to know the effects of medication and hormones on milk production. (Both Sudafed and estrogen (birth control pills, anyone?) will make milk supply plummet.) Know the signs of food allergies in baby and mom, and how to get those allergens out of breastmilk. The Journal of Human Lactation is a good periodical to pick up; a good beginner's book for diagnosing difficulties is The Breastfeeding Answer Book.