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Hi. My name is Barbara L. Philipp, MD. I am a Professor of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine, in Boston, MA, USA, a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and a Fellow of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine. I am a practicing pediatrician and I also like to write, teach, study, and talk about lactation - and help as many breastfeeding mothers as I can.

I started the The Lactation College on Substack (this site) in January 2021 to help candidates taking the IBCLC examination. Achieving the IBCLC certification is difficult and expensive. I thought I might be able to take important topics, break them down, make them understandable, and figure out a way to help the learner remember important points. And since I had some funding for the project early on, what if it was for free?

I am delighted to share that Lactation College has been a big success. We have now finished our 5th Semester and have almost 8,000 subscribers.

This is how it works. A Semester runs for about four and one-half months. The classes, in the form of newsletters that come to you as emails, are posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday in English and Spanish.

As the Semester rolls along, all posts can be found by scrolling down the page and clicking on “See All” or “Archive”. I take down the free posts when the Semester concludes. I take about a month break and then start up another Semester.

To start, you can go to the The Lactation College on Substack and read it first, or you can subscribe and then read the post. Subscribing means providing your email information so that as soon as a topic is posted it will go directly to your email box. This Basic Option is free to all. Emails are not shared.

As my funding has dried up, in an effort to keep the free site going, I also created an Advanced Option. I post on Thursdays on research articles in the field of lactation. Since so many offered feedback that they would like to learn more about pediatric topics, Pediatric Pearls started in March 2023. Once a week, also in the advanced open section, I will discuss common pediatric issues. Post Number One in Pediatric Pearls is about the infant head - Bumps, Lumps and Soft Spots. As a pediatrician, I got this one! The Advanced Option is behind a paywall and costs either $8.00 a month or $50.00 a year. Your support here support me and helps keep the basic, free option, going.

We have a new sister site, Lactation College, where you can go to take a course, learn and obtain CERP, CEU (nursing) and CME (provider) credits. Each course is about one hour long and costs $14 per. Some of the proceeds from course sales also will go to keep The Lactation College on Substack up and running. Come Learn With Us. This site also has a free blog that is posted every Monday. (I love the blogs, just saying!) Link to Lactation College

I realize this is a little confusing. I never thought this Substack site would be so popular. It’s a good problem to have!

Thanks so much for your interest, support, and for all you do for breastfeeding moms and babies.

I can be reached at babydoctor53@gmail.com.

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To find out more about the company that provides the tech for this newsletter, visit Substack.com.