Re: professional lactation guides

[Guest guest]

I just posted this on the MT page on FB:

You know, I get very upset when I see stories in the news about midwifery or homebirth and the people interviewed are doctors, nurses-- anyone but midwives. Yet, oddly enough, midwives seem very willing to do exactly the same thing to lactation consultants.

Midwifery Today has just published an article entitled "Meeting the Need: Building Communities of Lactation Support" by Angelique Chelton, Certified Lactation Counselor, in which she writes: "Take some time to understand just what services these professionals are offering and to whom. Please abandon unsupported ideas that assert that some lactation guides are better than others. Just as there is no hierarchy between various types of midwives, there is no hierarchy in professional lactation support. Be willing to consider that perhaps the letters behind a name don't matter as much as the heart, mind and experience of the guide. Let's be brave and take into account that all kinds of lactation guides have something valuable to offer the women in our community."

So, this would be like a ob-gyn coming along and educating the public about midwives. This woman is not an IBCLC, yet she feels qualified to diminish our profession, claiming it to be on a par with the CLC, which is absolutely is not. There IS indeed a hierarchy in birth--CBEs are not doulas and doulas are not midwives and midwives are not OBs (in my hierarchy here--OBs attend the truly high risk and cesarean births). So, while midwives may be equal, it is a false analogy.

Most breastfeeding helpers have education and skill similar to a CBE or a doula. Only the IBCLC had a credential equivalent to a midwife or OB. In fact, having talked to about a dozen other women certified as CLC in the past 24 hours, all have told me that they are told in no uncertain terms when they receive their certification that they are not IBCLCs and that the credentials are NOT interchangeable, that CLC can be a path toward IBCLC, but that they are to remember their scope and refer to IBCLCs where needed. Clearly these referrals are not being made and women and babies are suffering.

I am appalled that MT would print something so degrading to lactation consultants, and given similar experiences midwives have suffered through the years, I am deeply saddened. IMO, MT owes IBCLCs a retraction of this article.

Tow, IBCLC, USA & France

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