Beyond the Basics of Breastfeeding for NICU and PICU Healthcare Professionals – eCourse

Beyond the Basics of Breastfeeding for NICU and PICU Healthcare Professionals

Cost

Regular: $25.00
Student: $15.00
Premium Members will receive 10% off during checkout
Includes access to eCourse until completed or for 1 year

Overview

This course builds on the foundation of the IABLE Basics of Breastfeeding for NICU and PICU Healthcare professionals. Topics in the course are designed to further elevate participants’ level of breastfeeding support for lactating families in the NICU and PICU. We strongly encourage participants to experience the Basics course first.

Objectives

• 1. Identify the consistent and stable nutritional composition of human milk
• 2. Recite when maternal diet can affect baby’s GERD symptoms
• 3. Explain importance and strategies of providing human milk for ill infants including those with congenital heart disease and congenital anomalies
• 4. Describe the difference between fresh and frozen mother’s-own milk, and donor milk
• 5. Identify risk factors for low milk production and delayed in secretory activation among lactating mothers for NICU infants
• 6. Recite evidence based related medications and supplements which affect milk production
• 7. Outline barriers and opportunities to maintaining milk production while an infant is in the NICU
• 8. Identify risk factors for high milk production in lactating mothers for NICU infants
• 9. Explain how NICU parents are at increased risks for mental health incidence and prevalence
• 10. Explain strategies to support bereaved lactating parents
• 11. Identify the importance of breastmilk in the management of lactation for a NICU mother with active substance use disorder
• 12. Describe how to approach gender identity as different faces of lactation
• 13. Identify indications for breastmilk fortification among NICU babies
• 14. Discuss how to balance fortification with increasing breastfeeding

Topic Outline

• • Nutritional composition of breastmilk
• • Effect of maternal diet on infant GERD symptoms
• • The special role of human milk for ill infants, those with critical congenital heart disease, and other congenital anomalies
• • Medications during lactation
• • Strategies to sustain milk production in the NICU and PICU
• • Special considerations in providing human milk to the infant
• • Demographics and health inequity of human milk feeding
• • The basics of anatomy and physiology of lactation
• • Means of supporting lactating parents to come to volume in the first few weeks postpartum
• • The basics of pump use in the NICU or PICU
• • Strategies to support lactation long term
• • Feeding the NICU or PICU infant at the breast

Accreditation

CMEs: The AAFP has reviewed NICU Beyond the Basics and deemed it acceptable for up to 2 Enduring Materials, Self-Study AAFP Prescribed credits. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

CERPs: According to the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners® (IBLCE®) Individual CERPs Guide for Recertification Section I:

• • A CERP is a continuing educational credit unit assigned to 60 units of education that meets the professional educational needs of practicing IBCLC. IABLE’s educational programming with its CME accreditation are appropriate for each or all the following types of CERPs. We list the category and type of CERP on each certificate.
• o Education that is specifically about human lactation and breastfeeding is recognised with L-CERPs (L=Lactation).
• o Education about professional ethics and conduct is recognised with E-CERPs (E=Ethics).
• o Education that is related to the practice of IBCLCs, but is neither lactation nor ethics specific, is recognised with R-CERPs (R=Related).

The initial IBCLC certification application does not accept CERPs, and all educational credits awarded to IABLE courses can be used for required lactation education hours for initial IBCLC certification.

Nursing Credits: All state boards for nursing licensure approve of educational offerings that are approved by the American Nursing Credentialling Center (ANCC). According to ANCC Certification, the continuing education hours approved by the AAFP and AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ meet the requirement of formally approved continuing education hours and may be used as such for ANCC Certification renewal. https://www.nursingworld.org/certification/faqs/

Speakers

Liliana Simon MD, NABBLM-C, IBCLC, FABM
Dr. Simon works as a Pediatric Critical Care attending at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, Maryland. She holds a unique combination of expertise and board certifications in Pediatric Critical Care and Lactation and Breastfeeding Medicine; she is also highly knowledgeable in Palliative Care. She is actively engaged in education and research to advance breastfeeding care for hospitalized children, particularly in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). She is a Fellow of the ABM, and a Board member of IABLE. Her experience spans healthcare systems in Brazil, Montreal and the US and, while speaking multiple languages, she is passionate to providing culturally sensitive, comprehensive and compassionate care.

Anne Eglash MD, NABBLM-C, IBCLC, FABM
Anne Eglash MD, NABBLM-C, IBCLC, FABM, is a clinical professor with the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, in the Department of Family and Community Medicine. In addition to family medicine, she has been practicing breastfeeding and lactation medicine since 1994.

Dr. Eglash is a co-founder of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, the Medical Director and co-founder of the Mothers’ Milk Bank of the Western Great Lakes, and the Medical Director of the University of Wisconsin Breastfeeding and Lactation Medicine Clinic. She has published many peer- reviewed articles on breastfeeding medicine and is a past associate editor for Breastfeeding Medicine Journal.

Dr. Eglash is founder and president of The Institute for the Advancement of Breastfeeding and Lactation Education (IABLE), as well as a cofounder, inaugural president, and immediate past-president of the North American Board of Breastfeeding and Lactation Medicine.

Jeannette Prentice MD
Dr. Jeannette Prentice is a neonatologist at Helen DeVoss Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids Michigan. She did her residency and fellowship at Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio Texas. She has a special interest in breastfeeding medicine and quality improvement. One of her most recent QI projects was increasing MOM for babies in their NICU. She is a member of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine.

Christy Gilcrease MS, RD, LD, CSP
Christy Gilcrease has been a NICU dietitian for over 25 years. She specializes in critical care of sick newborns and supporting use of maternal milk in the NICU.

Leigh Campbell MD, NABBLM-C, IBCLC, FAAP
Dr. Leigh Campbell is a board‑certified neonatologist, pediatrician, and lactation medicine physician with more than two decades of experience in maternal and newborn health. She is the first physician in Mississippi to become board certified in lactation medicine through the North American Board of Breastfeeding and Lactation Medicine (NABBLM-C). She previously served as Director of Newborn Clinics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC), where she collaborated with multidisciplinary teams to establish the institution’s first hospital‑based lactation clinic, ensuring consistent, evidence‑based support across inpatient and outpatient settings.

Motivated by her personal experience breastfeeding twins, Dr. Campbell founded Bloom and Grow Lactation in 2021. Her practice provides comprehensive lactation counseling and medical care for families, offering individualized support from birth through complex neonatal transitions. Drawing upon her neonatology expertise, she is particularly committed to breastfeeding support and the lactation challenges that families face when their infants require intensive care following birth. Following discharge and transition to home, Dr. Campbell continues to support families with ongoing guidance on breastfeeding, pumping, or mixed‑feeding to maintain optimal growth and neurodevelopmental outcomes.

Stephanie Attarian MD, IBCLC, FABM
Dr. Stephanie Attarian is an Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee where she practices Neonatology and Breastfeeding and Lactation Medicine. After attending medical school at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, she completed training in Pediatrics and Neonatal/ Perinatal Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. During her fellowship training, she observed the gap in evidence-based support for lactating mothers of NICU infants which inspired her to become an International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant®, fellow of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, and educator for the Institute for the Advancement of Breastfeeding and Lactation Education (IABLE). Dr. Attarian now focuses her academic work on neonatal nutrition and is working to improve breast milk utilization rates, specifically mother’s own milk, in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Conflicts of Interest

None