Day 6 of Insights - 7 Things Every New IBCLC Needs to Know
#6
Welcome to my IBCLC© Day 2023 Series! Each day I’ll share with you one piece of insight about our work. (If you’re too excited and you just want to read them all now, go here and download the whole list)
Let me know in the comments if you agree, disagree, never thought about it this way, or whatever you’re feeling!
On the surface, it seems like a passionate interest in human lactation and a deep commitment to learning and serving others would be all you need to become a truly wonderful lactation care provider. However, we are (like everyone else) human beings with complicated internal lives, and there’s more to it than that.
6. Your personal lactation experiences can have a positive or negative impact on your practice.
Yes, you read that right. It's not just others in health care who can develop biases which impact their practice - we passionate supporters of lactation can have this problem, too!
Here’s why: though you may have learned tons of information, accumulated hundreds of hours of clinical experience, and passed a rigorous examination for board certification, you may not have had the opportunity to debrief your own personal lactation and birth experiences in a way which highlights your potential problem areas.
Biases can also form as a result of events that occur along the way in your lactation career - like when you miss something important, there’s a negative outcome in one of your cases, a client who complained about you, a wave of similar cases, etc.
These problem areas can be hard for you to see objectively, and they can absolutely influence the way you practice lactation care. It’s possible for your own fears and anxieties to influence your actions, recommendations, and ability to counsel others objectively. It’s not always obvious, and it can definitely leave you feeling like you are not effective in your role.
However, there IS a way to ensure that your personal lactation story can be used for good and woven into your actual mission and vision as a lactation care provider. Through a series of intentional exercises and coaching inside Mindful Lactation Counseling, you can do the work to open your mind and refine your ability to provide excellent lactation care.
One of the modules inside Evolve Lactation Community is a guided workshop called Mindful Lactation Counseling. It’s designed to help you uncover opportunities for personal growth in your lactation career, like revealing your biases and transforming your personal lactation story into a useful tool.
I’m obsessed with creating ways for you to build your resilience and strengthen your foundation so that you can impact more families through your personal touch as you provide them with lactation care.
Whatever we’re sharing, it helps us to feel less alone in this work. If you’re interested in learning more about how to join Evolve Lactation Community so that you can access the Mindful Lactation Counseling Workshop, drop a comment below with the word “mindful” and I’ll send you some details!
Information about the IBCLC© credential and how to pursue it can be found at www.iblce.org
Information about IBCLC Day can be found at www.ilca.org