Lactation & Breastfeeding Online Course(s) & Continuing Education

Lina Mazzoni is a Lactation Consultant, IBCLC with a Bachelors Degree in Speech and Language Therapy. Since 2013 she has been working primarily with children and specialized in the treatment of sucking, swallowing and feeding disorders. In 2019 she became a Lactation Consultant to be able to work equivalent with the children and the mother. As a working mom she worked part time as a Lactation Consultant in a hospital in Hamburg, started her own privat practice in 2019 and since october 2021 she works exclusively in her private practice as a lactation consultant and SLT. She also works as an Instructor in lactation education and further education regarding feeding developement and disorders . Lina has two children and lives with them and her husband in Hamburg, Germany.

Alyssa has been helping parents and babies with breastfeeding since 2002, first as a La Leche League Leader and since 2009 as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant.

Alyssa works in private practice serving clients worldwide, primarily through telehealth. She is the author of Breastfeeding Without Birthing: A Breastfeeding Guide for Mothers Through Adoption, Surrogacy, and Other Special Circumstances and a professional supplement to the book, The Breastfeeding Without Birthing Professional Pack online training.

Alyssa has authored articles for The Journal of Human Lactation: The Three Step Framework for Inducing Lactation and Successful Co-Lactation by a Queer Couple: A Case Study. She has also authored articles for La Leche League’s Leader Today and Breastfeeding Today magazines, and Adoptive Families magazine. She is an international speaker on the topics of inducing lactation, relactation, and other related topics. Alyssa is the proud mother of three breastfed children, two by birth and one by adoption. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.

Jake Marcus, J.D., is the nation’s foremost expert on breastfeeding law. Formerly Staff Attorney at a non-profit assisting survivors of domestic violence, her current private practice focuses on small businesses (including the business issues of health care practitioners such as IBCLCs and midwives) and healthcare. She was Politics Editor at Mothering magazine until it ceased publication in April of 2011. She was a member of the Legal Advisory Council to La Leche League International. She created and maintains BreastfeedingLaw.com.

Joy MacTavish, MA, IBCLC, RLC is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant and certified Holistic Sleep Coach focusing on the intersections of infant feeding, sleep, and family well-being. Through her business, Sound Beginnings, she provides compassionate and evidence-based support to families in the greater Seattle area, and virtually everywhere else. She entered the perinatal field in 2007 as birth and postpartum doula, and childbirth and parenting educator. Joy holds a Master of Arts in Cultural Studies, graduate certificate in Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies, and two Bachelors degrees from the University of Washington. She enjoys combining her academic background, analytical skills, and passion for social justice into her personal and professional endeavors. Joy serves as an Advisory Committee Member and guest speaker for the GOLD Lactation Academy. When not working or learning, she can be found homeschooling, building LEGO with her children, or dreaming up her next big adventure.

Anna is an IBCLC in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They started their work in the lactation field as a La Leche League Leader in 2015 and achieved board certification in 2018. Her three years with La Leche League included a two-year position as Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Administrator of LLL of Minnesota and Dakotas. Anna has worked with the Twin Cities' Queer Birth Project and currently serves as IBCLC for St. Paul- Ramsey County WIC and Baby Cafe. She holds a BA in Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies from the University of Minnesota, and works to break down barriers to lactation support and create space in the intersections of gender, sexuality, anti-racism, self healing, social and environmental justice, and natural infant feeding. She has presented for the Breastfeeding and Feminism International Conference, iLactation, La Leche League, the Twin Cities Birth and Baby Expo, and the Minnesota Department of Health. Anna holds down a homestead where she raises two kids and a bunch of animals and makes art. Find her at annabrauchlactationsupport.weebly.com.

Ramya Kumar is an ASHA certified Speech Language Pathologist specializing in infant and pediatric feeding disorders while practicing in a Level 3 NICU and outpatient settings in Phoenix, AZ. She is a Board Certified Specialist in Swallowing & Swallowing Disorders, Certified Neonatal Therapist, International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, Neonatal Touch & Massage Certified Therapist & has completed the Trauma Informed Professional Certificate. Ramya is an internationally sought out speaker & clinical mentor on the topic of neuroprotective care in the NICU, Pediatric Feeding Disorders and Tethered Oral Tissues. Ramya is passionate about helping families create mealtime success through a whole-body lens. More recently, Ramya has been serving as a NICU Developmental Coordinator championing changes in unit culture, system-wide policy development and supporting transition of NICU families to community based programs. She has also co-founded Arizona NICU Follow-Up Specialists, a community resource supporting NICU grads and their families as they transition from hospital to home.

Dr. Pound is a Clinical Investigator at the CHEO Research Institute, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Ottawa, and the Resident Research Coordinator for the Pediatric Residency Program at the University of Ottawa. She is a specialist in the field of Consulting Pediatrics and has presented at national meetings, and published in the area of breastfeeding, and has authored a position statement on breastfeeding for the Canadian Pediatric Society.

Rosann Edwards is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nursing and Health Sciences at the University of New Brunswick Saint John, an experienced front line public health nurse, and lactation consultant. She is also a third-degree karate black belt, and mother of boys. Rosann’s research and community work focuses on breastfeeding, the transition to motherhood, maternal satisfaction with breast/infant feeding, mothering in the shelter system, and empowering vulnerable populations of women and their children. She is the co-editor of the recent Demeter Press Anthology Breasts across Motherhood: Lived Experiences and Critical Examinations.

Laurie-Anne Muldoon has supported families both as an RN and as a Social Worker in a variety of hospital, public health and community mental health settings in the U.S. and Canada for the last 25 years. She has felt privileged to have companioned many women, families and groups through their experiences of loss, upheaval and life transitions. Her passion for perinatal mental health was reignited following her own birthing and breastfeeding experiences with her son 11 years ago. Laurie-Anne brings her compassion and respect for human dignity to her work with parents transitioning into the world of parenthood. She is founder of The Ottawa Integrative Mental Health Collective. A proud Franco-Ontarian, Laurie-Anne was born and raised in Ottawa Ontario. She currently works in private practice specializing in perinatal mental health, birth trauma and loss.

Emily Taylor is nationally recognized for leading hospital transformations to advance health, happiness and equity in communities impacted by structural oppression.

As Founder and Director of WISE (Women-Inspired Systems’ Enrichment), Emily currently leads Perinatal Care Quality Improvement Collaboratives throughout the United States. The collaboratives feature equity and social justice, action-oriented knowledge and skill-building, community engagement, and advanced leadership development.

Emily serves as Chair of the United States Breastfeeding Committee – a coalition of more than 100 organizations that collaboratively drive efforts for policy and practices that create a landscape of breastfeeding support across the United States.

Prior to founding WISE, Emily was Deputy Director of the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute. There, she directed the National Collaborative for Advancing the Ten Steps and other collaborative programs. She also conducted myriad research studies resulting in publication on influence of infant formula marketing, implementation of the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative, access to donor human milk in the United States, child sexual abuse survivors’ experiences with breastfeeding, and organizational readiness to change.

Emily is currently pursuing her doctorate in Public Health Leadership at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the same school from which she earned her Master of Public Health from in 2007. She completed the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Improvement Advisor Professional Development Program in 2012, and Tamarack Institute’s “Champions for Change: Leading a Backbone Organization for Collective Impact” in 2013.

Her experience as a certified childbirth doula and Lamaze educator and her identity as a woman, feminist, sister, advocate, and equity accomplice continue to inform her work.