Reflections of a Home Visiting Lactation Consultant

I started my career as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, IBCLC for short, at a busy hospital. In 2019, I started a very part time private practice called Love and Wellness Lactation, Ltd. I wanted to combine all of my lactation knowledge with skills that I had learned in my days as a La Leche League leader and from my work as a visiting nurse.

I loved my work in the hospital, but I also felt really passionate about serving families in the days, weeks, and months following hospital discharge at the place where I knew I was most comfortable nursing my own babies, at home. In 2020, I needed to make a choice and I chose Love and Wellness Lactation, Ltd. I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to make a career out of doing what I love so much. Would I get enough referrals to pay for my expenses let alone be able to give myself a paycheck? It was terrifying, and at times I had a lot of doubts.

I was fortunate to have been able to buy enough PPE at the beginning of the pandemic to keep myself and the families I served safe during home visits, and I learned how to perform telehealth visits. I became an in network provider with Aetna and Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield and their subsidiaries so families could benefit from my services.

With all of the craziness that has happened this year, I am so appreciative for all of the support I received from fellow lactation consultant’s, doula’s, nurses, nurse practitioners, and doctors; for the dentists and bodyworkers who let me sit in on their consults so I could learn from them, collaborate with them and have as trusted resources, and for other private practice lactation consultants who guided me and let me pick their brain. I am most grateful for the patients who opened their homes to me, who trusted me with their and their baby’s care, who left me reviews, who told their health care providers about the care I provided them, and who gave my name to other moms who needed help. Thanks to all of your support, my lactation visits grew by 900% from 2019 to 2020, something I could not have even imagined or done without the support of so many others.

As I look back during this year of turmoil for so many, I do so with a grateful and humble heart, and like so many of us I look forward to 2021 with hope.