Video 3. Speaking out: Maureen Minchin discusses how the Australian Lactation Consultants Association splintered in mid-1990s over false innuendo about WHO Code violation
In Video 3 of this four part series, Maureen Minchin discusses the splintering of the Australian Lactation Consultants Association and the many-years-long impact this had on professional advocacy for breastfeeding families within Australia.
About Maureen Minchin
Pioneering breastfeeding advocate Maureen Minchin BHons MA (Melb) TSTC is an Australian medical historian, author, and founding lactation consultant, now in her 80s.
From 1984-1986 Maureen played pivotal roles in the creation of IBLCE (the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners), ILCA (the International Lactation Consultant Association), and ALCA (the Australian Lactation Consultant Association), ensuring those organisations’ support for the 1981 WHO International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes.
From 1989 Maureen was involved in discussions that led to the creation of APMAIF, the Australian Panel on the Marketing of Infant Formula in Australia. After working with the WHO Nutrition Unit on Infant Feeding: the Physiological Basis, from 1991-2 Maureen pioneered the WHO/UNICEF Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative, at home and internationally.
Video 3 content summary
In this video Maureen outlines some of the historical details of the 1995-1996 split within the Australian Lactation Consultants Association (ALCA). This breakdown in the organisation was driven by some ALCA members who supported community activists urging a renewed Nestlé boycott, resulting in the splintering of the Australian Lactation Consultants Association, with ‘colleges’ replacing some ALCA state branches.
Without a unified and well-funded representative body to negotiate improvements for the support of breastfeeding women and their infants in Australia, effective national advocacy declined. The Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA) Lactation Resource Centre (which Maureen had helped to create) also closed in the late 1990s due to lack of funding and volunteers.
By 2009 the remnant ALCA and some breakaway state ‘colleges’ merged to form a new trans-Tasman organisation (known as LCANZ), which was again positioned to offer unified representation of the interests of International Board Certified Lactation Consultants in Australia, in conjunction with the original NZLCA, New Zealand Lactation Consultants Association. Maureen’s focus shifted to elder care, teaching, BFHI work, and her next book.
Other videos in this series
Video 1. Speaking out: Maureen Minchin helps pioneer the professionalisation of breastfeeding and lactation support internationally. Maureen discusses her role in the development of the ground-breaking initiatives in the 1980s which have professionalised breastfeeding and lactation support world-wide.
Video 2. Speaking out: Maureen Minchin successfully advocates for integration of support for the WHO Code into regulatory framework of professional lactation non-profits. Maureen discusses her role as a key advocate for the integration of WHO Code support into regulatory frameworks - and how she was subsequently subject within professional lactation support networks to false but damaging accusations of WHO Code violation.
Video 4. Speaking out: Maureen Minchin is in discussion with Dr Pamela Douglas, exploring how exclusion of researchers is widespread due to claims of WHO Code violation, without transparency or scientific rationale. The exclusion of researchers and clinican-researchers has increasingly and seriously biased lactation medicine education towards non-evidence-based interventions.
Breastfeeding Matters. CH10 History and Politics of Infant Feeding. Maureen Minchin.pdf
Maureen's books
Maureen is the author of
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Revolutions and rosewater: a history of the Victorian Nursing Council 1923-1973. 1978
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Food for thought: a parent’s guide to food intolerance. 1982 (first ed) 1982 (first ed) 1986, 1992 editions; UK and Japanese editions
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Breastfeeding matters: what we need to know about infant feeding. 1985, 1989, 1998 editions
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Milk matters: infant feeding and immune disorder. 2015