The Lactation Consultant in Private Practice: The ABCs of Getting Started

Linda J. Smith, MPH, IBCLC, FACCE, FILCA, is a lactation consultant, childbirth educator, author, and international consultant on breastfeeding and birthing issues. She was a founder of IBLCE, founder and past board member of ILCA, and serves on the United States Breastfeeding Committee. Her diverse background spans five decades of direct education and support for pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers in nine cities in the United States and Canada. She has worked in hospital systems and local and state public health agencies, and supported colleagues with service on related associations' boards. Linda is an Adjunct Instructor in the Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright State University in Dayton, OH, and has represented ILCA or LLLI to the World Health Organization's biannual meetings of BFHI Country Coordinators from Industrialized Countries since 2006. Linda is also a consultant to Baby-Friendly USA and INFACT Canada/IBFAN North America. She is currently the owner and director of Bright Future Lactation Resource Centre (BFLRC), whose mission is "Supporting the People Who Support ­Breastfeeding" with lactation education programs, consulting services, and educational resources. BFLRC is on the Internet at www.BFLRC.org. She is the author of four professional textbooks on birth and breastfeeding, author or co-author of 9 articles published in peer-reviewed journals, and co-writer of Sweet Sleep by La Leche League International. She has lectured in 19 countries; her presentations have been translated into 12 languages including Chinese, Russian, and Inuktitut. She co-authored the 2018 WHO-UNICEF Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative's Competency Verification Toolkit. Her Lactation Management/Exam Preparation Course is the longest-running course of its kind, the first to be based on the IBLCE Detailed Content Outline,, and has been presented to thousands of students in the past 30 years.