Why aren't we in all the rooms yet?
it really feels like we should already be there
Unless you are working in an NICU environment, this latest publication probably escaped your radar. I found it today while looking for something else (which is honestly how I find most stuff anyway.) It spoke to me of issues I spent loads of time pondering and discussing during my time on the board of USLCA.
The IBCLC is a young credential at just under 40 years old. I’ve talked to many people who were in the room where it happened, and though details may vary, the official history is that “…factors of consumer demand, scientific evidence and practical clinical skills converged to create an ideal climate for the new profession and for standards that demonstrate the practitioner’s knowledge and skill to practice in the field of lactation consulting.” (https://iblce.org/about-iblce/#History, retrieved 30 May 2023.)
Essentially, there was more interest in resuming the breastfeeding practices that kept our species going for all of time, minus the immediately previous 6 or 7 decades. (More on that later.) Therefore, the folks who were offering women the breastfeeding information and support they needed once home connected up with the nurses and other health care providers who were working with new mothers in hospitals, and a credential was born that could tie a breastfeeding thread between hospital and home with real information designed to help people navigate the rougher bits.
It’s actually brilliant if you really think about it. Melding the clinical with the practical, highlighting the needs and desires of new families from hospital to home (what with most babies being born in hospitals, even if sent home in less than 12(!) hours at the time). Taking the wisdom of people who had been supporting their families and neighbors to breastfeed for as long as they could remember, and mixing it up with what science was learning about the process of breastfeeding and the composition of human milk and what medical professionals knew about how the human body works.
A process for training and testing individuals to earn this credential was created with a lot of sweat and tears (and possibly even some leaked breastmilk along the way). The new IBCLC credential gave credibility to those breastfeeding experts outside the medical field while offering opportunity to those inside it who happened to have an interest in human lactation or a need to understand it for clinical purposes.
Here’s why I’m thinking about all of this right now:
I feel like throughout these past 30-something years, we’ve collectively felt like by now, we’d be pretty much accepted, embedded, and undeniably part of the healthcare milieu. In particular, we’d be a no-brainer when it comes to care of the preterm infant.
But are we?