Outpatient Breastfeeding Champion-FAQ

Breastfeeding promotion and support are unique challenges to the medical community. Other than pregnancy, breastfeeding is the only physiologic condition that involves a dyad, making support tricky both for the obstetrician/gynecologist and the pediatrician. Breastfeeding medicine is not typically taught to health professional students at schools in the United States, so the vast majority of health professionals in outpatient offices, radiology centers, pharmacies, etc. are unfamiliar with how to support breastfeeding dyads and solve breastfeeding problems. Many families receive conflicting, unsubstantiated, and often improvised advice. In addition, access to lactation specialists varies depending on the community and health insurance such that optimal breastfeeding care is not guaranteed.

Based on our experience, medical office staff, providers, pharmacists, public health nurses, doulas, midwives, home visitors, WIC peer counselors, social workers, interpreters, nutritionists, LLL Leaders, and health professional students can all gain practical skills in breastfeeding management from Outpatient Breastfeeding Champion (OBC) training. Our curriculum emphasizes clinical utility, by using case presentations and most-commonly-asked-questions, so that our trainees have the answers they need to provide primary care lactation services. Just like CPR training, the OBC training program can teach a wide variety of people to successfully support breastfeeding dyads.

The Outpatient Breastfeeding Champion will not have the skills or credentials to be a lactation consultant. Becoming a board-certified lactation consultant requires many hours of didactic learning and hands-on training. Outpatient Breastfeeding Champion Training provides a solid foundation for any individual interested in pursuing further lactation education. We anticipate that Outpatient Breastfeeding Champions will assist lactation consultants in their community by providing ongoing breastfeeding support for dyads who are under the care of lactation consultants. In addition, they can take care of the most common breastfeeding issues, leaving lactation consultants to manage more challenging cases.

The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) was created by the World Health Organization and UNICEF in the late 1980’s. The BFHI is based on the fact that appropriate, evidence-based breastfeeding support in the first few days after birth is crucial for parents to breastfeed successfully. In many countries successful breastfeeding has markedly decreased the infant mortality rate. This initiative, which trains hospital staff to support breastfeeding so that parents leave the hospital with the proper knowledge, skills and confidence to nurse their babies, is now sweeping the country.

However, after parents and babies leave the hospital, parents and families usually need to seek their own support for questions, concerns, and problems concerning breastfeeding. Parents might talk to their friends and family, attend community drop-in groups, hire a private lactation consultant or see a hospital-based lactation consultant. The medical home is the obvious next place that support should occur, but families typically don’t think of their doctor’s office as the best place to receive breastfeeding advice. In 2011, the United States Surgeon General, Dr. Regina Benjamin, put out a Call to Action for Breastfeeding Support, urging communities to develop ways to enhance breastfeeding support in order to raise breastfeeding rates. The development of the OBC Program is in response to the Surgeon General’s call to action. The OBC curriculum teaches the science of breastfeeding management during those first few days postpartum, but focuses on breastfeeding topics and issues that arise after the family leaves the hospital, through the next few years and beyond until the baby weans.

As a 14.5 hour training program, our course is shorter in duration than the CLC and CLS programs. The goal of the Outpatient Breastfeeding Champion Program (OBC) is to teach individuals the basics of breastfeeding and how to answer the most commonly asked questions. Breastfeeding Champions who complete the OBC program are able to provide excellent telephone and face-to-face support for basic uncomplicated breastfeeding problems. They also learn the first steps in helping families with complicated issues who are waiting to be seen by a lactation specialist. With the OBC training as an excellent foundation, many Breastfeeding Champions have been inspired to further their breastfeeding education in pursuit of lactation consultant certification.

The Outpatient Breastfeeding Champion does not have an official certification. We provide CERPs for lactation training certification through the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners. We also provide Continuing Medical Education Credits (CMEs) which can be used by many professions, such as nurse CEUs.

Each trainee receives the following:

• An electronic version of IABLE telephone breastfeeding triage tools which can be incorporated into electronic medical records systems or used in paper records.
• Breastfeeding education handouts.
• Copies of the PowerPoint lectures.
• The Outpatient Breastfeeding Champion Curriculum Book written by IABLE.

Contact us at IABLE!