May is an exciting month in Vermont for breastfeeding events! Two big things are happening … The Miracle Milk Stroll on May 2nd, and the Healthy Children Certified Lactation Counselor Course from the 18th-22nd.
The Miracle Milk Stroll will take place at the University Mall at 10 AM on Saturday May 2nd. This is the second annual stroll and the first time the stroll has been hosted in Burlington! There are over 150 sites in the US and Canada so far.
Chittenden County Breastfeeding Coalition will be hosting the stroll. It will be a fun get together and casual walk around the mall to raise awareness about the importance of donor milk and it’s use in hospitals, especially in the NICU.
The proceeds from the stroll will go towards Best for Babes, NEC Society, and La Leche League USA who will use the funds to create educational materials and strategies for the general public, parents, providers and hospital administrators about the existence, accessibility, safety and life-saving power of human milk and donor milk for our most fragile and compromised infants.
The founder of the NEC Society, Jennifer Canvasser, has a bittersweet story of how her non profit organization came to be: Remembering Micah’s Smiles: How I’ve Learned to Live Without My Son .
From the NEC Society: “Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is an intestinal disease of premature infants. NEC affects the bowels of premature infants and causes an inflammatory process that can lead to intestinal tissue damage and death.”
Her story is important to share because human milk reduces the risks of Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) by nearly 80%. Raising awareness and advocating for human milk as a preventative measure for NEC is a big part of the stroll.
CCBC feels it is especially important to have a stroll right here in Vermont to raise awareness of our own use of donor milk for our NICU and babies born in local hospitals. Many hospitals have limited access to donor milk based on huge demands based on milk banks and Vermont currently does not have it’s own milk bank.
Register for the Vermont stroll here: VERMONT: BURLINGTON Miracle Milk Stroll
Lactation Counselor Training Course
From May 18th until the 22nd, the Healthy Children Project will be hosting a Lactation Counselor Training Course. This week long course is jam packed with tons of information about breastfeeding. It touches on almost all subjects and the last afternoon is dedicated to taking a standardized test to obtain your Certified Lactation Counselor certification which can stand on its own or supplement your current career.
Healthy Children CLC course description and upcoming classes
The target audience for the Certified Lactation Counselor (CLC) course is typically nurses, pediatricians, neonatologists, family practice physicians, dieticians, WIC peer counselors, home health nurses, doulas, childbirth educators, midwives, La Leche League leaders, child care providers, and students who working their way towards taking the International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) exam.
If you ever wanted to learn more about breastfeeding or maybe to see if a career in lactation is for you then I definitely would look into taking this course. It is open to anyone!
I have personally taken the course and I really enjoyed it. I learned a LOT (and I thought I knew a lot already!). My teachers were engaging and the time passed quickly. I know several other local mamas who have also taken the course and they also would recommend it and would even take it again!
[…] My time between classes was not spent socializing with friends or sipping coffee. Instead, they were mostly spent in the back of the commuter parking lot pumping breast milk. […]