Lactation Medicine & Child Nutrition Online Program
An intensive online program with 120 h of lactation specific education where you will gain all the clinical skills and knowledge you need to provide excellent care to your patients.
about your mentor
Paola Vallarino IEP IBCLC CBS
Paola is a lactation specialist with over 10 years of medical background and extensive clinical experience in Lactation Medicine.
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She is an Internationally Educated Physician, a Certified Breastfeeding Specialist and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (L-303520), the gold standard certification for health professionals working with breastfeeding families. Paola also holds a Diploma in Child Nutrition. She’s always updating her knowledge with continuing education and she's also certified as a Pediatric Sleep Specialist and an Infant Craniosacral Therapist. Paola is an IBCLC mentor and guides students through their certification process by providing them with their lactation specific clinical practise.
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​Paola also specializes in tongue-tie and in recent years has developed extensive experience caring for babies with tongue-tie alongside pediatric dentists and medical experts in the area, including world-renowned expert Dr. Jack Newman, at the International Breastfeeding Center in Toronto. For several years Paola has been a mentor and guides her students in the certification process as IBCLCs through her clinical practice mentoring program.
about the program
As a doctor and with some basic knowledge of breastfeeding, Dr. Paola always thought that she would be ready to receive her baby and start breastfeeding several years ago. To her surprise, she had several obstacles and breastfeeding turned out to be more complicated than she thought. After turning to different health professionals, she had to study and solve her problems on her own since no one could help her. She was fortunate enough to overcome her breastfeeding issues thanks to her husband's support and access to expertly created breastfeeding books and videos.
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It was the first time that Paola knew this profession of lactation specialist. In the 8 years of his medical career he never explored this area. He realized the great lack of lactation specialists as part of the basic maternal and child health team. She decided to train as a lactation specialist and, then, she realized that even within the specialty there is a lot of misinformation and many updates are needed in the pedagogical area to give future specialists all the tools. From there this training was born, in which Dr. Paola made sure to include every subject that she considers essential for each specialist who is joining this beautiful profession.
All topics within the training are based on the content assessed in the international certification exam.
For the detailed content outline of the course please click here.
Please know that there's a waiting list and you need to apply in order to be admitted into the program.
Modules 1-5:
Maternal and Infant Health
1. Anatomy and Physiology.
2. Growth, Development and Nutrition.
3. Pathology.
4. Pharmacology.
5. Ethics. Research.
Publich Health. Advocacy.
Modules 6-10:
Clinical Skills
6. Lactation advanced techniques.
7. Clinical skills of a lactation specialist: tools, technology, clinical challenges.
8. Psychology, sociology and anthropology.
9. Lactation consulting in practice.
10. Oral function and habilitation of the breastfeeding dyad. Bodywork and lactation.
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Evaluation:
Theorical and LIVE tests
Diagnostic skills and assessment capabilities will be evaluated with an online test and a LIVE virtual test by your mentor.
testimonial
"Paola is an outstanding mentor with a wealth of information that needs to be shared with as many people as possible!
I am honoured to have been able to work along side her over the past few months. It was an honour to complete my clinical hours with her. She was genuinely invested in the growth and development of my practice and learning. She truly put her heart in to making my time at Mamas Au Lait the best possible experience.
Thank you for taking me under your wing Paola,
Deena Zacks."
