For any new mother who wants to breastfeed her baby and is having trouble getting started, a lactation consultant is very often a saving grace.  But how do lactation consultants get started? What does the lactation consultant training involve?

The truth is that there are three different paths that someone can choose from if they want to become a lactation consultant.

1. The most common pathway requires the person who is becoming the consultant to have some job experience in the healthcare field working with children or moms, or someone who works with support group for breastfeeding moms that has certain criteria that they have to meet. This first path requires the applicant to complete a training program for lactation consultant that’s geared toward breastfeeding education management, ethics, and any other requirements for continuing education.
2. The next pathway requires the candidate to have completed and graduated from a properly accredited program in breastfeeding and human lactation.  The program has to have been a yearlong and must also have included clinical assignments as well as the clinical portion that was required.
3. The final pathway has the requirement that candidates have to complete a plan for lactation education and will be supervised by a minimum of one consultant that has been recertified.   The plan is required to be approved by the consultant before the candidate starts the clinical component.

Although all three pathways aren’t approved around the world, all three are approved in the countries of North America.  Lactation consultants are instrumental in helping new mothers with nursing their babies and giving them advice.

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