Are Lactation Consultants Process Specialists or Product Specialists?
The Era of Unchecked Product Promotion in Infant Feeding
*Scroll to the end for a beautiful and exciting announcement!!
I just wrapped my latest speaking engagement, this time for the United States Lactation Consultant Association (USLCA).
Today’s presentation was “Integrity and Advocacy: Overcoming the Overwhelm of Commercialism and Product Promotion in Lactation Care.”
When I first started working in the lactation field, pregnant women received ads and free formula samples in the mail, saw ads in magazines, and probably saw formula-branded items in their doctors’ offices.
They likely received free formula samples from their hospital when their babies were born.
All the other messages they heard came from people they knew and talked to in their everyday lives.
Today, everyone is online, where they encounter massive amounts of advertising messages about formula, baby products, breastfeeding devices, parenting techniques, labor and birth, etc.
Media is much different from what it was in 2001.
Plus, most pregnant and birthing people still receive free formula samples in the mail, from their doctors’ offices, and from the hospital where they give birth.
The overarching message about breastfeeding in the U.S. today is that it is hard and unsustainable for most people.
Advertisements are everywhere, encouraging new mothers and parents to use breast pumps, milk warming devices, nipple ointments, baby rockers, supplements, formula, and more.
Companies have a vested interest in getting their products in front of potential buyers, and they are doing a fantastic job of that.
The global formula industry alone was worth $165B in 2024 and projected to grow substantially.
But there are also so many products being pushed in front of new parents and health professionals, and it can be incredibly hard to promote breastfeeding in this environment.
That’s why I wrote this presentation.
Questions about “ethics in lactation care” used to be relatively simple and straightforward.
Today, there are levels of complexity.
Systemic barriers to breastfeeding impact nearly every new parent in this country.
The majority of new mothers and lactating parents work at least part-time and so are separated from their infants for at least part of the day, multiple times per week.
There has been a proliferation of devices, tools, and products surrounding direct breastfeeding, milk expression, and bottle feeding, and a dizzying array of items are prominently displayed to parents both online and in big-box stores.
Parents are being sold the concept that buying more things for their baby and their breastfeeding journey makes them better parents.
And lactation care providers, along with all healthcare providers, are being targeted to endorse (explicitly and implicitly) products marketed for breastfeeding and non-breastfeeding parents.
Lactation consultants must navigate a complex environment influenced by commercial interests.
We have to be able to work with individual clients without having conflicts of interest interfere with the clinical care we provide.
We must fulfill our responsibility to advocate for breastfeeding to the general public, including in our online communication and social media presence, while acknowledging and respecting that individuals make their own choices about feeding their babies and have their own, personal feeding goals.
There are so many questions about what we can say, what we shouldn’t say, and what we would say if only anyone would listen.
One truth emerges from all of this: as lactation consultants, we must consider ourselves primarily specialists in the PROCESS of lactation.
Products can be great, and they can also be harmful.
We won’t be able to determine their potential without the cornerstone of knowledge about how the lactation process really works.
Tools, products, and devices are inherently replacements for parts of the process, so we must be able to understand and explain those parts to know how the products will work.
It would be easy to slip into being an “expert” in breastfeeding-related products, especially for an individual who is not an IBCLC and wants to focus only on those products.
The problem is that without the foundation of education that an IBCLC has received, they will know mostly about the products and not really about the process of lactation or the true context of the process in health and life overall.
Lactation consultants have a duty to provide accurate information free from commercial bias.
This webinar explored a lot of questions pertaining to ethical lactation practice and how to set yourself up to avoid being distracted by the constant call of companies to endorse or promote their products.
It is part of what I think of as your “Practice Philosophy,” something whichI explore more deeply with my paid subscribers through workshops and exercises.
While I prepared for this presentation over the past weeks, I thought a lot about how much impact this is all having on breastfeeding promotion.
You may recall that I recently embarked on a huge project to curate research and findings about overall breast health throughout the lifetime.
I created a course about it, and the course remains open for enrollment until Aug 21, 2025.
I have spent a lot of time reflecting on how to turn all of that breast health information into a book.
This week, I realized something extremely significant: in order to make the information in the breast health guide applicable and meaningful, I will need to weave in these messages about how to avoid being influenced by companies seeking to profit from the endorsement of health care professionals
The Guide (as we’ll call it here until it has an “official” title!) is already underway.
I expect to publish it in October, and you will hear a lot about it as I write, read, and reflect on it over the next few months.
The Guide will go far beyond “the basics” of breast development and the fundamentals of lactation.
The impact it will have on all perinatal professionals will be enhanced by the messages it will convey about keeping commercial interests out of infant feeding.
If you’d like to watch/listen to the whole webinar that I presented today, it is available from USLCA here.
As always, thank you for everything you do for babies and their parents!
