What has been one of your most memorable experiences as an IBCLC?

Meena Sobsamai  – My most memorable experiences I have had working with a mother and her child in the hospital, in the support group or even on the phone, are the ones where we can see that the easiest cases, and the most difficult ones, are made to feel ‘normal.’  Our responsibility is to keep normal as norm and to help difficult situations to become much easier and make it back to ‘normal.’ Two of these important responsibilities are caring about birth and breastfeeding.  I always say ‘relax, you can do it and we’re here to help you’.

One of those moments that has been very rewarding and made me feel proud to be an IBCLC, and a parent educator, is when I see the breastfed baby’s eyes after he/she gets a good LATCH and his/her mother smiles while her baby is breastfeeding.  For me, my heart feels big and I feel high like the endorphins have elevated my mind with achievement. It’s more than words can say.  I’m sure you love it as well and would love to make it happen again and again. For IBCLC, it’s my honor to have this and I’m so glad to hear the  young nurses  run to me after my talk or lecture saying that ‘You’re my idol.’ Thank you, my dear, you’re also my drive to make it happen.

Meena Sobsamai Nurse-Midwife,IBCLC , Grad.dip in Childbirth Education Lactation

Clinic Samitivej Sukhumvit Hospital

Childbirth&Breastfeeding Foundation of

Thailand IBLCE Co-ordinator for THAILAND

Tomoko Seo -Recently I was invited to speak on breastfeeding at a meeting for pediatricians in a city 750 km (460 miles) away from my hospital. I talked on breastfeeding basics that pediatricians should know. When I was answering questions, a young female pediatrician raised her hand and told her story. Although I did not remember her, she had, in fact, given birth in my hospital and I had checked her son at the well baby clinic. When she asked me at my clinic about how she could continue breastfeeding after she returned to work, I informed her that she could express her milk and ask the nurse to give it at daycare. Soon after that, she moved to the city where I was invited. It was a coincidence to meet her again. She told the audience that she was very happy that she could breastfeed her son for more than one year while she was working. I was very pleased to hear her story because not only had I been able to encourage a first time mother, but I also helped create a pediatrician who experienced happy breastfeeding. I believe it is useful to make breastfeeding-friendly physicians to help mothers to continue breastfeeding. This is one of my strategies.

Tomoko Seo, MD, IBCLC, FABM, is a pediatrician, who is working in a private maternity hospital and a pediatric clinic in Japan. She certified as IBCLC in 1999 and served as the president of Japanese Association of Lactation Consultants (JALC) from 2001 to 2003. She is a member of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine. She has translated various documents and books on breastfeeding into Japanese. She has served as Conference Chair of the annual breastfeeding seminar for physicians sponsored by JALC since 2005. She works as a lecturer at breastfeeding conferences as well as a clinician caring for mothers and babies.

What has been one of your most memorable experiences as an IBCLC?

Bryna – When I was still interning- I had the experience that would change me deeply- I was working at the lactation clinic and it was a busy day. Sometimes we accepted walk-ins. We had three women on the couch in the front waiting for help, and a woman in the appointment room already. So I went out to the front and led a three woman latching session- it was pretty funny! “Okay- get your positions, aim your nipple to the roofsof their mouths, one, two,  three…latch!”

Alright, it wasn’t quite that well orchestrated, but it was close! Only one of the women still had trouble- her son refused to latch. He just laid there with his mouth wide open! I worked with her weekly at first, and then almost daily, for six months. At the end of six months, one day during a home visit, her baby latched right on!! We both had to stifle our screams of joy and relief- we didn’t want to scare the baby! Best moment of my career so far!

Bryna Sampey became board certified in October, 2010. She began her career path in much the same way many women come to the profession- by having a baby. She went to Sonja Massey, RN, BSN, IBCLC’s free breastfeeding support group in Monterey, CA to get help with her four day old’s nursing- and fell in love with what Sonja was doing for families. Her first question (and it’s still her question today) was: “Why don’t more women do this?” Sonja took Bryna under her wing, and guided her through the process, step by step, first aiding her to become a Certified Lactation Counselor in 2007, and throughout many whirlwind weeks of internship full-time, finally to the IBLCE exam. Bryna has a special passion for helping alternative families, and families with children who have special needs. Also a doula, her private practice, Doula My Soul,  focuses on lactation home visits, support, education, classes, and care from birth through weaning.

Denise – My most memorable experience is one that was vicariously enjoyed. As an educator I love to hear from students about how they applied what they’ve recently learned to a consultation.

This particular ‘vicarious experience’ was a story from a community midwife who was studying towards being an LC while working as a volunteer in a 3^rd World country. Mary had recently completed a course with us on the premature infant. In a small village she found a mother with week-old twins trying to squeeze milk from her breast into one twin’s mouth, saying they couldn’t suck.  Mary wrote “My heart was frozen” when she saw the twins. Their gestation was unknown but birth-weights were 1600g and 1700g (3.25 – 3.5 lb) and weight now at 1 week of age was 1000g and 1100g (2.2 – 2.4 lb). Also, she reported the infants were so cold she was surprised they were still alive.

Mary sprang into action with the knowledge she’d just acquired. She helped the mother hand express her breastmilk and cup-feed her infants, who took the milk well. She put the infants into kangaroo care with their mother for many hours until their temperatures became normal. Mary had not heard of either cup-feeding or kangaroo care before her studies. These two actions saved the lives of these infants. With lots more support for the young mother from Mary the twins thrived.

I felt so proud to be a part of this wonderful story, both helping the student gain knowledge she’ll use all her professional career,  and ultimately being a part of saving two lives.

(Note: student’s name changed to protect her privacy. All details available on request.)

Denise Fisher, BN, MMP, IBCLC
Director, Health e-Learning
denise@health-e-learning.com

What has been one of your most memorable experiences as an IBCLC?

Judy: One of my most memorable experiences as an IBCLC was providing Lactation support in Addis Ababa while working as a volunteer with SIM Ethiopia.

A poor Ethiopian mother with high blood pressure, an under-grown baby and a third world setting spells perhaps, a poor outcome and maybe even death for someone in this family.

This was not this mother’s first high risk pregnancy as she’d had twins 8 years previously down south in Ethiopia (one twin weighed .8 kilos and the other 1 kilo) and successfully breastfed them both without supplements.  However, the new baby, without need for breathing help, was being kept in the NICU at a big referral public hospital in Addis Ababa and separated from the mother until there was a space in the kangaroo care ward. So the family decided that it was time for them to come home with some support.

They came home when the baby was 1.4 kilos and the mother was able to self-express breast milk into the baby’s mouth when the baby tired of breastfeeding.  She fed the baby every 2 hours day and night and practiced kangaroo care in their very poor, modest but clean home with 3 other children.  We weighed the baby weekly on my dining room table and both baby and mother thrived (all free of supplemental formula.)

I have worked with SIM Ethiopia (an evangelical mission group that’s been here for almost 100 years) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for 6 years. I have had a number of positions here including helping manage an obstetrical unit at a Korean Mission Hospital and helped open a neonatal intensive care unit there that focused on kangaroo care. I also worked for 2 1/2 years as lactation and feeding specialist with Cure Ethiopian Children’s Hospital with cleft lip and palate babies managing the nutrition and feeding issues of over 200 babies through their palate surgeries; all of these families were required to use breast milk as medicine. Now I’m doing private lactation support and back to work issues for Ethiopian and expatriate women living in this country. It’s a privilege to be here.

Judy Norman, RN, MN, MPH, IBCLC, SIM Ethiopia

What has been one of your most memorable experiences as an IBCLC?

Maya and Theresa in Moscow

Maya: At the 2008 ILCA conference, I sat at the same table as Kathy Parkes one day for lunch. I was reading a book about breastfeeding in Russian. We started to talk and Kathy encouraged me to get more information about breastfeeding support in my former home. I started looking for information on forums and talking to different people. We exchanged information. That was how the idea was born for me to take a trip to my home-town of Minsk.

Theresa: We make quite a pair, Maya and I. She was raised in Belarus, but lived most of her adult life in Ohio. I was raised in Michigan, but lived most of my adult life in Moscow, Minsk and Kiev. It took just a few letters and one brief meeting for us to realize our shared vision – to foster the exchange of information and resources with Russian-speakers who are passionate about breastfeeding. Maya’s first visit to Minsk and Moscow in 2009 brought together a few dozen like-minded women.

Maya: I saw how many breastfeeding supporters had experience and knowledge breastfeeding their own babies, but how limited was their access to evidence-based information. The information provided by many doctors and nurses was very poor.

Theresa: After Maya’s presentation, for the first time I really understood what ‘IBCLC’ meant. I was amazed to discover that I’d accumulated enough hours as a peer counselor to sit for the 2010 exam. With Maya’s encouragement, I sent in my application. We shared a room at the ILCA conference in San Antonio. I applauded as she received two awards – Each One Reach One, and Above and Beyond. A few days later, she stood outside the room as I sat the exam.

Maya: That first year, I was the IBLCE Coordinator for 4 countries where the Russian-speaking potential candidates lived. Only Theresa and Sandra Lase (Latvia) took the exam. I was so proud that they both passed. I visited Moscow a second time in October 2010. That time, there were more than 100 participants from 43 cities, representing five countries.

Moscow Lactation Library

Theresa: The next step was to work on how to bring the exam to the Russian-speaking consultants. We worked hard to establish an exam site in Moscow and get the Russian-speaking candidates ready to take the exam in English. You can’t imagine the Skype sessions! Maya was tirelessly answering questions for the dozen women preparing for the exam. The consultants in Moscow met regularly for “lactation English” lessons, using lactation textbooks donated by MILCC, book publishers and private donations.

As the results were being posted, we all gathered around our computers – scattered across multiple time zones and continents – to hear the results. In the end, we had quite Skype celebration: 12 new IBCLCs! A total of 8 in Russia, 1 in Belarus, 1 in Ukraine and 2 in Latvia. Some had scored in the 80-90 percentiles. Even the complaints of naysayers, who opposed the introduction of the exam in Russia, could not dampen their sense of accomplishment.

Maya in Moscow

Maya: This time I get to see Moscow in the spring. For the 2012 conference in Russia, Jack Newman will speak to an expected crowd of 170 this April. It’s so nice to see that the local associations of consultants are growing and dreaming bigger every year.

Theresa: Now that my family has moved to New Zealand, I don’t know when I’ll be able to visit my dear friends and colleagues next. But, this experience has taught me that distance really isn’t an issue with modern technology. Maya and I will continue to offer our support and encouragement – now on three continents!

Maya Bolman lives in Cleveland, Ohio. She was born and raised in Minsk, Belarus.
Maya has been an IBCLC since 2001. Currently she works at Cleveland Clinic
Hillcrest Hospital as the lactation consultant as well as in a private
pediatric practice. Maya started working with breastfeeding supporters in the
Former Soviet Union countries back in 2008. She made two trips to Moscow, Russia
and Minsk, Belarus to conduct seminars about breastfeeding in 2009 and to
present at the First Conference of NFCA (Natural Feeding Consultants
Association) of Russia in 2010. The highlight of both trips was meeting many wonderful and talented women who are very passionate about breastfeeding. Maya has three wonderful children and a very supportive husband. 

Theresa Yaroshevich  first came to Russia in 1994 to teach English for “just one year” and left 17 years later with a Russian husband and three bi-lingual children. Her experience giving birth in a Moscow ‘birth-house’ inspired her to become a peer counselor and eventually an IBCLC. Theresa founded the 200-member Moscow Mommy Milk Meet-up (Russia) & a smaller group in Minsk, Belarus — both of which later became the first LLL groups in those countries. Her favorite part of working in a multicultural context is savoring how motherhood can be at the same time unique and universal. As a trailing spouse, she has organised 5 relocations in 4 countries in 6 years. Her children are currently learning to run barefoot in New Zealand, and hope to master the Kiwi accent.