About The Lactation College on Substack

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

Crazy idea?

This site started in January 2021 during COVID lockdown times. I was sitting at my desk in my study at home, reading the NY Times, and came across an article about Substack. Substack was a new platform for writers.

I had an idea, but honestly it was crazy - post information about breastfeeding, a topic which most had no interest in, on a platform named Substack, which no one had heard of.

I am not sure why I decided to give it a try. Perhaps because of these things that bother me:

Many doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals receive minimal to no education on breastfeeding in their training. (Yet these are the people new mothers turn to for help.)
AND becoming a lactation consultant is so expensive that it limits who can make that journey.

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 what if the learning could be for free?

Great amazing astounding news

The great/amazing/astounding news is that The Lactation College on Substack has been a big success. As we start this new Semester, this site now has over 10,000 subscribers.

How this works:

This site runs in a Semester format. A Semester runs for about five months. The classes in the Semester, in the form of newsletters that come to you as emails, are posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday in both English and Spanish.
Once a Semester starts, all posts stay up and can be found by clicking on “See All” or “Archive.” If you join mid-Semester, no worries, all the posts are there.
To start, you can go to 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. Obviously, the free option is free to all. Emails are not shared.
In an effort to keep the free site going and cover some of my time, I also created a paywall of $8 a month or $50 a year. When you join the paid option you receive: 1) Research Thursday - a weekly post about a research article in the field of lactation and 2) Access to older Pediatric Pearls posts.
If you jump over the paywall and are paying a monthly or yearly fee, and then decided you have had enough and wish to cancel - you need to go to Substack and search for “how do I cancel.” Instructions there will guide you through the process. Any support is truly appreciated and please stay on for the free info!

I never in a million years thought this Substack site on breastfeeding would be so popular. It’s an awesome problem to have!

Thanks so much for your interest, support, and for ALL YOU DO for breastfeeding moms and babies. It takes a village for sure.

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.

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The goal of this site is to provide information for anyone who is interested in learning about lactation and breastfeeding.

People

Barbara L. Philipp, MD

@thelactationcollege

Pediatrician, Professor of Pediatrics, Teacher, Writer/Creator over on sister-site lactationcollege.com with first hand experience as a wife, mother, and grandmother. Breastfeeding is important, but it can be hard - I hope this helps.