Do you dream of working with pregnant and postpartum families as a lactation consultant? You’ll need to find an IBCLC mentor.
As a lactation consultant in private practice, you can support families in so many ways:
- Breastfeeding
- Bodyfeeding
- Bottle feeding
- Expressing human milk
- Preparing infant formula
- Introducing complementary foods
- Sleep and infant development
- Infant movement, play, and oral rehabilitation
- Nutritional needs for parents and babies
- Induced lactation
- Engorgement and mastitis
- Low milk supply and insufficient glandular tissue
- Tongue tie and other tethered oral tissues
- Prenatal preparation
- Hormonal challenges
- Illness in parent or baby
- Returning to work
- Perinatal mood disorders
- Weaning
And this is just the tip of the iceberg! It is so exciting to support families during this time. And every aspiring lactation consultant needs to have both education and clinical experience in order to meet the complicated needs of these parents and babies.
You may know that there are three Pathways to becoming an IBCLC, but there’s only one that truly gives you the skills and experience you need to meet all the diverse situations you’ll come across in private practice.
And that’s Pathway 3, working with a primary mentor to earn 500 hours of supervised clinical experience in order to qualify for passing the exam. An IBCLC in private practice will train you how to take a clinical history, evaluate and examine parents and babies, observe and assess feedings, and create a personalized management plan so families can meet their goals.
It can be challenging to find an IBCLC mentor, but with some initiative and patience you can get the training you need from someone who believes in you.
Learn more about the three Pathways here, and then sign up to receive a free guide to finding a Pathway 3 mentor and hear about ways you can prepare for lactation private practice once you’ve passed your exam and become an IBCLC.
