My own experience with breastfeeding has prompted a real interest in advocating for it, educating about it, and most importantly offering support for it that is often hard to find. Anyone know of ways to become a lactation consultant, breastfeeding advocate, etc? I think I would really like to do this, even if just on a voluntary basis
Shaun C. was applying to be a lact.consultant a while back and asked this question about her resume. Maybe she has some insight since her question was over a month or two ago. http://www.mamapedia.com/questions/8086690152006680577
im thinking about it too, in order to become a lactation consultant you must first go through nursing school, to be a breastfeeding advocate you have to take a course, like a 6 month course its anywhere fro 2 to 4 thousand, I live in houston and researched it here. I cant imagine it is much different than san antonio.
Contact La Leche League online to find out.
I would ask certified lactation consultants in your area and ask what they did. La Leche League members are advocates, though not necessarily certified.
I would also try contacting your local hospitals. My lactation consultant worked out of the hospital.
While you are pursuing this profession, please make sure to read The Breastfeeding Mother's Guide to Making More Milk, by Diana West. It has invaluable information in it, and if any of the LCs that I had seen had read it, I might not have had the low milk supply problems that I did.
Have you considered becoming a Leader with your local LLL group? The Leaders are all volunteers who offer free help to other mothers. It's a great way to get the word out to moms about breastfeeding and to help moms succeed!
Check with the La Leche League in your area:
There are lots of resources on their web site, I'm sure someone can point you in the right direction!
That's great that you want to want to do that! It's a lot of work, but there are several different ways to go about it. Contact your la leche league and they should be able to point you in the right direction. Any chance you have been on WIC? If so, they hire peer counselors. Peer Counselors go through several paid trainings to learn about breastfeeding, situations that may arise, etc. Then, you work in the local WIC office. Whenever there is a mom on WIC in need of breastfeeding support, she is sent to the peer counselors office for advice or help and can also check out a pump from a counselor. The counselors also give advice over the phone to mom's in need of help. Through this program, you can also go to other trainings that will lead toward hours to becoming a lactation consultant. It is a wonderful job, although it can also be a little sad at times.
My one experience with La Leche League is a young woman who had no children walked into my hospital room unvited and proceeded to tell me that breastfeeding was easy and natural and she had heard I was having problems so - according to her- I had psychological problems. She kept saying that over and over and then finally left. I HATE La Leche League.
