About International Board Certified Lactation Consultants (IBCLC)
IBCLC’s are health professionals and practitioners with qualifications in health sciences who have extensive skills and specialist experience gained over a long period of time supporting breastfeeding mums and babies. This enables them to support complex breastfeeding and lactation challenges. They will have evidenced at least one thousand clinical hours providing breastfeeding support, completed at least 95 hours of lactation specific education and passed a degree level international exam before qualifying as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant.
IBCLC’s are able to offer feeding support for babies in a number of complex situations including those with extra needs or illness, prematurity, slow weight gain or weight loss, jaundice, birth complications or tongue-tie, and for mums and parents who may have had a multiple birth, low or abundant milk production, illness or medical conditions, breast related issues, previous breast or chest surgery, or who wish to re-lactate or induce lactation.
Only those who have passed the International Board Certified Lactation Consultant exam can call themselves IBCLC’s, and every 5 years they must recertify to maintain the qualification by demonstrating continued competence through professional development and specialist lactation practice.
