Breastfeeding Peer Counselor Training

A breastfeeding peer counselor is a mother in the local community who has personal breastfeeding experience. She offers professional advice and support to other mothers by answering questions and ensuring the most positive breastfeeding experience for her peers possible. Peer counseling courses are available to lactation consultants, midwives, doulas, health care professionals and any woman interested in acting as a peer counselor.

Employer Training

In many cases, being a breastfeeding peer counselor means being employed through an agency or organization that provides its own training program. Peer counselors for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, for example, attend five four-hour training sessions. These sessions provide information through classes and small group discussions, presentations, role playing and hands-on activities. Peer counselors receive periodic evaluations from the hiring agency, regularly attend meetings, and document client meetings.

Non-Employer Training

Some organizations offer peer counselor training to the public as a way to promote breastfeeding in the community. La Leche League, for example, focuses on providing peer counseling to low-income communities with a lower rate of breastfeeding. It offers courses to women who want breastfeeding information for themselves or whose work brings them in contact with breastfeeding women. These courses can run 20 or more hours, and come with fees. However, programs like these do not offer employment and often rely on volunteer services from people interested in running and participating in peer counseling programs.

Typical Program Curriculum

Common breastfeeding peer counselor training courses include lectures on the benefits, management and promotion of breastfeeding as well as effective counseling techniques, the anatomy of the lactating breast, techniques to help mothers and babies "latch on" properly, cultural issues and how to overcome common problems associated with breastfeeding. Many programs, like La Leche League's breastfeeding program, offer continuing education hours or a certificate at the end of the course, if not employment, as in the WIC program.

Other Programs

Other organizations offer breastfeeding peer counseling to encourage a philosophy of natural birthing and parenting. For example, Wholistic Birth Support and Childbirth Education of Southern California does not hire peer counselors but offers training and programing for women who want to support and aid mothers in their community. No previous experience with breastfeeding is necessary for the California course. The site states the program is open to "any woman who wants to help other women breastfeed." Courses are also sometimes available at local colleges and universities. University of California at San Diego, for example, offers various lactation courses. Anyone interested can take these courses, though they can choose to participate in the university's certificate program as well.

Considerations

In some cases, prospective peer counselors must complete a practicum or internship before receiving certification. In the Southern California Wholistic program, candidates must pass the written program exam with a 70 percent score or higher and participate in a practicum, helping three mothers with breastfeeding. Candidates must turn in self and client reports for each of these encounters. Online distance education courses are another option. Many of them require a time commitment equal to that of a college course, but offer more flexibility than a traditional classroom program.