As we come to a close of 2022 there is a lot to reflect on in the world. The past few years have given us all an opportunity to reflect on our practices and how we provide services. They have also highlighted many challenging areas yet given us the opportunity to realise our ability to be flexible, think outside the box, and to provide hope.

Lactation, breastfeeding, chestfeeding, bodyfeeding are all inclusive to supporting a world with hope and acceptance. All of us that work in this field have at one stage or another thought that what we do can change the world, and it can. As lactation professionals, we have the ability to share knowledge with others and to guide our colleagues, communities and our governments in a direction that will benefit all.  

As we come to the close of 2023, we have a lot to reflect on in the field of human lactation and infant feeding. The world is quite unsettled and the simple instinctive behaviour of breastfeeding, chestfeeding and bodyfeeding is also impacted. Yet this simple act is something that can save lives. We continue to see around the world, devastation due to conflict and natural disaster. Industry uses these situations to promote themselves and their products. It is essential that the knowledge of lactation and support is based on best practice and without industry influence.

When you dream something is possible and work really hard in collaboration with colleagues, sometimes those dreams become reality!  It has been a very busy and exciting past few months for Health e-Learning-IIHL and the years’ prior have been even more of an adventure.  Sometimes the paths cross at the right time and this was the case for what has developed into the International Institute of Human Lactation Inc., (Health e-Learning-IIHL) collaborating with the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR).

The journey started many years ago yet began to blossom about 4 years ago with a small team Louise Dumas, MSN, PhD, Chantal Doucet DC, DICCP,MSc, and myself, Carole Dobrich, B.Sc, RN. IBCLC.  

We all had a similar goal to improve lactation through interdisciplinary education. We believed that lactation support needed a village which included all health disciplines.  We wanted to develop an advanced lactation program designed for health care professionals from a variety of backgrounds, with each bringing their own strengths to the learning process. It took a few years as we assessed, evaluated and planned what was possible. We asked international experts to evaluate the content validity, relevance, and feasibility of our proposed interdisciplinary graduate program in advanced lactation and they responded.

A Year to Remember

The year 2020 will go down in history as one we all will remember for so many reasons.

For Health e-Learning-IIHL, we started the year by participating in the first Breastfeeding Advocacy Australia WHO Code training and Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies (IYCFE) workshop on Coochiemudlo Island with colleagues from around the world.

We also attended the annual New Zealand Lactation Consultants Association conference in Auckland, New Zealand and met up with many wonderful colleagues and friends. We had a full calendar year booked and we had looked forward to catching up with colleagues and students at WPHNA (Brisbane, Australia), ELACTA (Milan, Italy), AQC (Quebec, Canada), ILCA (Houston, USA), IBC (Chennai, India), and LCANZ (Melbourne, Australia).

Then in March 2020, it seemed that the whole world stopped! Flights were cancelled, international border crossings were closed, conferences were cancelled or became virtual, due to the global COVID 19 pandemic. The world as we knew it changed and for many has not returned to anything resembling normal. The pandemic has impacted the world, including all supporting infant and young child feeding.