Healthy Children Project, Inc. | Evaluated Learning Experience
Lactation Counselor Training Course
45 hours.
July 2012 – Present.
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to: recognize their own and others attitudes, values and expectations about infant feeding, formulate and apply safe, evidenced based and effective lactation management strategies for pregnant, lactating and breastfeeding women, and apply an individualized counseling approach to the management of breastfeeding and human lactation.
Course content includes the public health significance of breastfeeding; barriers to successful breastfeeding; anatomy and physiology of lactation and breastfeeding (maternal and infant); factors that influence milk production; health outcomes associated with infant feeding choices; expressing, storing, and handling human milk; safer use of infant formula; contraindications to breastfeeding; counseling skills; the impact of maternity care practices on infant feeding; breastfeeding assessment; overcoming challenges through evidence-based management strategies; nutrition and breastfeeding; biomedical ethics and lactation care practice; and system approaches to improved infant feeding practice such as the UNICEF/WHO Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative. Course content is delivered through lecture, video, and small and large-group work, as well as homework assignments, quizzes, textbook readings, role-plays, and a final exam.
In the upper division baccalaureate degree category, 3 semester hours in Lactation Education, Nursing Education, Health Care Administration, or Public or Community Health (7/17) (7/22 revalidation).