About The NDC Lactation Fellowship

The NDC Fellowship vision

• An extension of existing NDC Institute courses, enabling advanced practitioners in Neuroprotective Developmental Care to extend their knowledge, skills and expertise to the highest possible level in breastfeeding and lactation medicine, following the curriculum recommended by the North American Board of Breastfeeding and Lactation Medicine. The International Board Lactation Consultant Examiners' required content detailed 20203 here is also covered.

• Two streams [Stream 1 for health professionals; Stream 2 for medical practitioners] to allow for participants to optimise key skills while working within their discipline-specific scope of practice

• A platform for advanced practitioners to discuss cases and issues, which welcomes rigorous debate, disagreement, and discussion

• Completed Fellows will be able to use the terms NDC Lactation Fellow (NDCLF), or NDC Lactation Consultant (NDCLC).

Who can participate?

The NDC Institute is delighted to launch the Neuroprotective Developmental Care Lactation Fellowship, which offers advanced upskilling in breastfeeding and lactation medicine for NDC Accredited health professionals, who are all registered with their specific professional bodies in their own countries.

You can join the NDC Fellowship by purchasing LACTATION FELLOWSHIP in your dashboard. Costs are here.

Pre-requisites

• NDC Accreditation, completed either with The NDC Institute or the Possums charity any time prior to its closure. (If you paid to enter the NDC Accreditation pathway with the Possums charity but didn't complete prior to the charity's closure, and would like to resume, please email our Education Manager at education@ndcinstitute.com.au, as The NDC Institute is now in the position to help you re-join without you incurring extra cost.)

• Membership of Maintenance of NDC Accreditation.

What is involved?

The NDC Lactation Fellowship comprises 95 hours of time investment (Level 3), in addition to Masterclass participation (Level 1, 24 hours) and NDC Accreditation (Level 2, 50 hours). This means that to complete the NDC Lactation Fellowship you will invest a total of at least 169 hours.

• Self-paced online learning from 29 sequential modules (but you can access these in an order that suits your own preference). Each module will take on average three hours to complete (including the relevant recorded or live online guest speaker presentation + Fellowship Live Network Hour)

• Regular Fellowship Live Network Hour (1 hour available every month; 5 'live online' attendances compulsory prior to graduating)

  • Stream 1 for registered health professionals

  • Stream 2 for medical practitioners

• Three case presentations + three self-audits.

• Five years in which to complete. This 5 year period acknowledges that, in our experience as educators in this space, health professionals are often managing multiple responsibilities and roles, and often need more time to complete a course than they anticipated initially.

  • Upskill at your own rate

  • Join at any time and pause at any time (within a 5 year period).

Who will deliver the NDC Lactation Fellowship?

Dr Pamela Douglas

Dr Pamela Douglas is a highly experienced breastfeeding medicine doctor, Fellow of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, general practitioner, researcher, and lactation medicine educator, who began her general practice career in an Australian First Nations' community controlled health service in 1987. She first qualified as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant in 1994, and started publishing breastfeeding-related research in international journals from 2005. Pam's passion right throughout her professional life has been to make a contribution towards improved wellbeing for breastfeeding women and their infants. She is a Royal Australian College of General Practitioners' Education Provider.

Pam's 30 or so research publications have a foundational focus on

1. Clinical breastfeeding and lactation support;

2. Mechanobiology and human breastfeeding and lactation;

3. How the societal disruption of the evolutionary norm of breastfeeding has resulted in widespread health system confusion concerning a range of infant behaviours or signs, which in turn has resulted in

   • High levels of maternal and infant distress

   • Overpathologising of both mother and infant in clinical breastfeeding and lactation management

   • Treatments for breastfeeding problems which lack efficacy or even worsen outcomes.

Guest presenters

The NDC Institute invites in many guest presenters, who help build the content of the NDC Lactation Fellowship. These are expert researchers and clinicians active in the fields of human lactation and infant care internationally.

• You can find the Guest Speaker program here.

The NDC Lactation Fellowship Curriculum

You can find the curriculum here. Details of Learning Outcomes and topic lists are available inside The NDC Institute.

How does the NDC Lactation Fellowship interface with IBLCE and the NABBLM curriculums?

The NDC Lactation Fellowship

• Covers the curriculum of the North American Board of Breastfeeding and Lactation Medicine, preparing candidates to sit this exam if eligible (only available to North American doctors).

• Meets the Lactation Specific Education requirements for the International Board Certification of Lactation Consultants examination eligibility process. You can find IBLCE's detailed content outline here. If you wish to sit the IBLCE exam, you will also need 300-1000 hours of observation (depending on your IBLCE pathway) which you would need to organise independently.

• The NDC Lactation Fellowship meets eligibility criteria as an education provider for IBCLE CERPs, if you are already an IBCLC, which will need to be self-logged with IBLCE. That is, you can meet your IBLCE re-certification requirements by becoming an NDC Lactation Consultant (or Lactation Fellow). Please note that you can self-log L and R-CERPs with IBCLE by engaging NDC content.

• Offers an alternative advanced qualification reflecting expertise in Lactation and Infant care without the requirement for 300-1000 clinical hours (unsupervised or supervised depending on your IBLCE pathway). Instead, participants access dozens of Clinical Demonstrations between Pam or NDC Educator Renee Keogh RN IBCLC conducted with volunteer patients, either recorded or live online, drawing on the latest evidence-based skills in lactation medicine, case discussions in Live Network Hours, and self-logged case audits. The NDC Lactation Fellowship doesn't include more supervised clinical hours because our participants are already health professionals registered with the relevant supervisory registration Board in their own country, and already work clinically with families and infants.

How to register

You can join the NDC Fellowship by purchasing LACTATION FELLOWSHIP in your dashboard. Then you will be able to access the content guide, workbook, and other materials.

Please contact our NDC Educator Ms Bree Cosgrove at b.cosgrove@ndcinstitute.com.au if you have questions.

Related resources

The NDC Lactation Fellowship: what makes it different

The NDC Lactation Fellowship: upskilling leaders in lactation medicine

The NDC Lactation Fellowship: cost and comparisons

NDC Lactation Fellowship Curriculum

The Lactation Medicine Lab - live online 2026

Guest Speaker program