LCGB Conference 2024: My takeaway

This year’s LCGB Lactation Consultants of Great Britain conference took place in
Birmingham on Wednesday 18th and Thursday 19th of September, and I was delighted to represent ALCI at the event. Thankfully I had some travel companions and was accompanied by 5 further ALCI members Caoimhe Whelan, Nicola O’Byrne, Ciara Butler, Pauline McLoughlin and Sue Jameson, so we had a strong delegation from Ireland. And it was especially great to see one of our own, Caoimhe Whelan, open the conference with her fantastic and very well received talk on ‘Social Media and the IBCLC – Ethics, Privacy, Misinformation and Maternal Mental Health’.

Sue Jameson,Nicola O’Byrne, Pauline McLoughlin Caoimhe Whelan, Naomi Hurley, Ciara Butler

Over the next two days, we (a live audience of around 100 and an additional online viewing audience) were treated to a variety of extremely interesting and thought-provoking talks and two panel discussions. On Wednesday Dr. Justice Reilly talked about ‘Beast Pathology’, Ali Thomas on ‘Breastfeeding During Fertility Treatment’, Shurron Rosales on ‘Navigating Ableism as a Mum’ and the day concluded with a Peer Supporter Panel discussion on ‘Building Foundations’.
On Thursday Dr. Alex Pinto spoke about Equitable and Ethical Imagery Use, Dr. Naomi Dow told us ‘It’s not Thrush’, Nekisha Killings talked on ‘Inter Continental Collaboration to Close the Disparity Gaps and the conference concluded with the Allied Health Professional Panel discussing ‘Collaborating with AHP to Enhance the Feeding Journey for Complex Infants and their Parents.

The Theme of the conference was ‘The diversity of Lactation Support – a Team effort’ and this was reflected in many of the talks. In the breaks (and also in the evenings) there was also ample opportunity for conversations, networking and catching up with colleagues from the UK and other countries , and we were happy to see many come to our ALCI stand, find out more about our organization and
especially in our upcoming conference. There was good interest from our UK colleagues, and I hope we will see some of them at our conferences – online or in person-in the future.

Attending LCGB gave me a lot of food for thought, in relation to commonalities and differences in our approach to running the organization and conferences, as well as ideas for speakers and subjects that would be of interest and benefit to our ALCI members in the future. All together a very worthwhile, enjoyable (and exhausting) experience.

Naomi Hurley, Helen Borg, Sue Jameson

Complied by: Naomi Hurley, IBCLC

Dated: 23rd September 2024. 

Naomi received a ALCI's complementary President's entrance ticket and her expenses were paid by ALCI. ALCI Council would like to thank Naomi for her report.

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