1511cf66_all_To_Action_on_Breastfeeding__Topic
[ID] 1145 [Interest Areas] Concerned Citizen Health Care Provider Lactation Professional [Comment] As a lactation consultant for over 10 years, I consistently see that physicians are rarely if ever targeted and given the responsibility not only to educate themselves about breastfeeding, but to be the ones responsible for educating their clientele on research based information about breastfeeding. Not that they can do this single handedly. My recommendation would be to somehow enforce a policy requiring all OB/GYN and Pediatric physicians to have a Board Certified Lactation Consultant on staff at their facility. It would be this properly educated individual that would be able to instruct and support the patients and staff members on all of the very important matters regarding breastfeeding. I feel physicians are very negligent about how serious of a health issue breastfeeding really is. They need to be held accountable. Also, hospitals need to make it mandatory for any nurse working in the Maternal/Child field of nursing to take continuing education classes in breastfeeding. I have worked in facilities that do not require this for their staff and I have even seen a facility where at one time it was mandatory but later dropped as a mandatory rquirement with no explanation as to why educating their staff about breastfeeding was no longer a priority. Hospitals are not required to comply with the recommendations of the ILCA policy and procedure guidelines that plainly state how many board certified lactation consultants should be on staff at a facility according to the volume of babies delivered at that hospital. Why doesn't JAHCO enforce these policies? [Topic] 
Maternal and Infant Care Practices: Prenatal, Hospital, and Post-Delivery Care
Call To Action on Breastfeeding
Topic