Courses

All reading material is included in the courses or links to helpful websites are provided. We encourage you to purchase a good quality lactation text and perhaps consider adding a new book to your collection each year.

The Health e-Learning facilitators have combined the votes of their favourite lactation books as listed below.

Clinical

  • ILCA, LEAARC - Core Curriculum for Interdisciplinary Lactation Care  2nd edition 2022
  • Lawrence R - Breastfeeding: a Guide for the Medical Profession 9th edition 2021
  • Wambach K, Spencer B - Breastfeeding and Human Lactation 6th edition 2019
  • Wilson-Clay B, Hoover K - The Breastfeeding Atlas  7th edition 2022

Counseling

  • Lauwers J, Swisher A - Counseling the Nursing Mother 7th edition 2020

Advanced

  • Campbell S - Lactation: A Foundational Strategy for Health Promotion, 2022
  • Hale TW, - Hale's Medications and Mothers' Milk 2023: A Manual of Lactational Pharmacology
  • Hanson L - Immunology of Human Milk 2004
  • Marasco L, West D - Making More Milk:  The Breastfeeding Guide to Increasing Your Milk, 2020
  • Watson-Genna C - Supporting Sucking Skills in Breastfeeding Infants 4th edition 2023

Online Resources

Breastfeeding Advocacy and Action

Counseling/ Mother Support

Other

Journals

Français

To qualify to sit the IBLCE examination you must obtain an amount of education - the program or course you chose should cover the disciplines examined as outlined in the IBLCE detailed Content Outline. Take the time to read through the detailed content outline, and make sure that whichever education program you choose, it covers the listed topics. Discussions with other lactation education providers helped cement our own position that 95 hours simply is not enough to cover all the information a Lactation Consultant needs to know in order to be prepared to give the best care and advice to those who put their trust in us.

You may have noticed on the IBLCE website that while they have set 95 hours to be the minimum, noting that students who complete the more comprehensive programs are more likely to pass. The Exam is set at a university Masters level, so you can imagine how in-depth you need to study each of the disciplines.

Our BreastEd Series is the program we have developed that is used by hundreds of students to prepare for the IBLCE exam each year. This program is LEAARC-approved, indicating that it is recognised as providing a quality comprehensive lactation education program for novice and  skilled lactation consultants. The program consists of 10 online courses, each taking about 12 hours to complete.

If you enroll in the whole series at once, you'll be enrolled in all 10 courses for 12 months, allowing plenty of time right up to, and after, the Exam to review the topics at your leisure. You can, of course, complete them at the pace that suits you, having them finished well before the Exam, but still having access to the tutors, your colleagues and the content. Everything is online, including the final assessment. A workbook is printed from the program, completion of it providing you with an excellent resource, but not having to be submitted.

If you feel like chatting to some people who have or are going through this process, there are different groups on FaceBook you can view. You can also ask if there are any IBCLCs in your area who might be able to help you, or ask for advice on how others became IBCLCs. There are state, provincial, national, and international lactation consultant associations that you can join to meet up with others and become part of the global community. Many have student membership rates. 

You can find some testimonials and other interesting topics on our Health e-Learning YouTube channel 

This depends on you: your current knowledge, and professional situation. For advice, you can ask at the Community Forum. Your question will be seen not only by Health e-Learning's trained staff members, but also by your peers in the lactation community, including a lot of Health e-Learning's prior students who have been through the courses themselves. This means that you'll hopefully get a highly balanced view from many different points of view.

Any information you can provide about your experience will help you get a better-tailored response, for example, if you are an LLL Leader, a midwife in Australia, or just have a keen interest in Breastfeeding. Also be sure to read to see if anyone else has asked the same question!