The NDC Lactation Fellowship: upskilling leaders in breastfeeding medicine

Upskilling leaders in breastfeeding and lactation medicine

The NDC Lactation Fellowship is for NDC Accredited health professionals who are interested in

• The integration of lactation medicine research as foundational to knowledge in each domain of parent-infant care: infant development, cry-fuss problems, sleep, perinatal and infant mental health. NDC does not attempt to co-opt these domains into the field of lactation medicine, but acknowledges they interact together, each a vital part of the complex adaptive system of the mother-infant pair, with breastfeeding and lactation medicine foundational for each domain

• Thorough understanding of how implementation science works in the field of breastfeeding medicine

• Upskilling in genuinely holistic clinical practice, which means that the NDC Fellowship

  • Works from the evolutionary premise that effective clinical breastfeeding support requires clinical expertise in the domains of unsettled infant behaviour, infant sensory motor development, and perinatal and infant mental health

  • Analyses and advocates for the practice of slow medicine and slow care. The Slow Medicine movement (in conjunction with the Slow Care movement by registered nurses) advocates for healthcare characterized by moderation, respect, and equity. Slow Medicine aims to deliver personalized, high-quality care, without health system waste (e.g. unnecessary investigations and treatments) (5,6)

• Leadership in education within their own communities and countries concerning clinical breastfeeding and lactation support and infant care. As part of Slow Medicine practice, the NDC Lactation Fellowship advocates for environmentally sustainable prescribing

• Mitigation of overdiagnosis and overtreatment in the field of clinical breastfeeding support and infant care, in the face of worsening trends to overdiagnose and overtreat internationally

• Rigorous intellectual engagement with existing research, including the capacity to critically analyse

  • Research study methodologies

  • Current trends in breastfeeding medicine and lactation consultancy practices and education, including analysis of how we can contribute to the development of our collective human intelligence in the field of breastfeeding medicine (consensus clinical guidelines, education for colleagues, research), as we make contributions in our own regions

• Evolutionary bodywork: sophisticated clinical skills for empowering mother and baby as single entity comprised of many complex physiological systems, including mechanobiological systems, which dynamically interact in real time (gestalt fit & hold intervention for mother-baby pairs), for the repair of

  • Nipple pain and damage

  • Fussy infant behaviour at the breast

• Ethics as we interrogate and negotiate

  • The interface between market-driven business forces or pressures, conflicts of interest, and desire to provide genuinely evidence-based clinical breastfeeding support in primary care or hospital settings

  • Ideology in lactation medicine: what is it, and how it affects not only clinicians but breastfeeding families

  • Orthodoxy and heterodoxy (power, status and rhetoric as determinants of the kind of research knowledge which garners institutional and policy support) in the fields of breastfeeding medicine and clinical lactation support, drawing on the pioneering work of Professor Trisha Greenhalgh and others. (3,4)

Related resources

About The NDC Lactation Fellowship

The NDC Lactation Fellowship: what makes it different

The NDC Lactation Fellowship: cost and comparisons

NDC Lactation Fellowship Curriculum

The Lactation Medicine Lab - live online 2026

Guest Speaker program

Selected references

(1) Stuebe AM. We need patient-centred research in breastfeeding medicine. Breastfeeding Medicine. 2021;16(4):349-350.

(2) Rutherford C, Boehnke JR. Introduction to the special section "Reducing research waste in (health-related) quality of life research". Quality of Life Research. 2022;31:2881-2887.

(3) Greenhalgh T, Ozbilgin M, Contandriopoulos D. Orthodoxy, illusio, and playing the scientific game: a Bourdieusian analysis of infection control science in the COVID-19 pandemic. Wellcome Open Research. 2021;6(126): https://doi.org/10.12688/wellcomeopenres.16855.12683.

(4) Greenhalgh T, Russell J. Reframing evidence synthesis as rhetorical action in the policy making drama. Healthcare Policy. 2005;1:31-39.

(5) Bobbio M, Vernero S, Coimberti D, Gardini A. Slow Medicine and Choosing Wisely: a synergistic alliance. J Évid-Based Healthc. 2021;4:e4222. http://dx.doi.org/4210.17267/12675-17021Xevidence.12022.e14222.

(6) Dobrina R, Cassone A, Ferrari G, Tempesta M. Nursing Outlook. 2025:102528.