Abstract
Dear Editor:
Your press release on January 15, 2020, announced the publication by Breastfeeding Medicine of the article originally published with the title “Management of Cannabis Use in Breastfeeding Women: The Untapped Potential of Certified Lactation Consultants” 1 coauthored by Kara R. Skelton, PhD, Sara E. Benjamin-Neelon, PhD, MD, MPH, RD, and Kelly C. Young-Wolff, PhD, MPH. We applaud the journal for publicly addressing the important issue of cannabis use among birthing women, and the inclusion of lactation professionals in the maternal health care team.
Although it is important to encourage support for mothers, infants, and families at this challenging time in their lives, we are very concerned that these authors confused the important terminology differences between an “International Board Certified Lactation Consultant®” (IBCLC®) and a “Certified Lactation Counselor®” (CLC®) in their initially published article.
We appreciate that the article has now been corrected online and that a corrigendum 2 will be published in the February issue. It is also important to discuss this confusion in terminology.
These trademarked titles and abbreviations 3 represent certifications for two different types of breastfeeding support providers, each possessing significantly different levels of education, clinical experience, and elements of professional certification. For example, in the third sentence of the original article CLCs were introduced as a “key potential partner” in screening and educating pregnant and postpartum women about cannabis use and concerns, without defining who they are. In the section “Certified Lactation Consultants” the first sentence defined CLCs, except the reference was to a page on the International Lactation Consultant Association website, the professional association of IBCLCs, entitled “What is an IBCLC?” 4 The second statement concerned the number of Internationally Board-Certified Lactation Consultants in the United States. However, that article only used the acronym “CLCs”—never IBCLCs.
What is the concern? IBCLCs and CLCs are not equal designations and thus are not interchangeable terms. This has been elucidated recently in Dodgson's article 5 “Lactation-Specific Certifications: A Comparison of Independently Accredited Credentials” in which published documentation available from each of these organizations was compared using quality standards that have been established in psychological and educational testing.
The United States Lactation Consultant Association issued a response 6 to this article on January 15, 2020 on their website, also requesting that the article be edited for accuracy of this terminology. This confusion of terms is not minor. Although we agree that all levels of lactation care are important to support breastfeeding families, it is important that mothers, families, and as importantly other health care providers, especially physicians, understand the differences in education and training of all who provide care so that appropriate and competent care is always given.