By Anne Merewood, PhD, MPH, IBCLC

The Journal of Human Lactation recently published two papers on our Online First page about use of telehealth equipment in lactation consulting. Those 2 papers will be printed in November, alongside a Round Table Discussion about computer technology in daily IBCLC practice, and an Insights in Practice paper, co-authored by Lactation Matters’ own Amber McCann and Jeanette McCulloch, about lactation consulting and social media. Their bottom line?

New mothers are using social media.

IBCLCs had better get with the program. (And don’t worry, they tell you how!). With this techno-heavy issue due in November, JHL’s editorial staff, egged on by those incorrigible, born again social media-ites on ILCA’s Marketing Committee, resolved to take our own messages to heart, and thus, a week ago, JHL “arrived” on Facebook.

According to Amber and Jeanette, I’m a “digital immigrant”, compared to New Young Things born into the computer era and thus, “digital natives.” As an immigrant learning the lingo (use of that dated word alone would presumably raise howls of derision from my teenage sons, who watch my efforts from a safe distance, with indulgent contempt), my plan was to take it slow and build the page, but of course there is no slow …within minutes “likes” materialized like magic; within days we had over 100 of them and the “thing” had developed a life of its own. As the “young mother” (young in the figurative sense, yes) of this site, I hover anxiously over its development, ever anxious of hitting the wrong button and sending very public errors into the etherspace. But I have a team of student caretakers, and so far, it’s been nothing but fun!

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