Nursing Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Nursing, including details on health care, hospital staff, professional care.

How to integrate a lactation consultant in an outpatient clinic environment.

Lukac M, Riley JK, Humphrey AD

Myers Park Outpatient Clinics, Carolinas HealthCare System, Charlotte, North Carolina 28232, USA.

Successful efforts in improving breastfeeding initiation rates at an urban teaching hospital prompted the hospital to create a lactation consultant (LC) position in the outpatient setting to focus on breastfeeding duration. This article reviews the complexity of the clinic setting, with the challenges and benefits of the consultant's first year in one of the hospital's outpatient clinics. Preliminary data collected by the consultant suggest that patients counseled by the LC in the outpatient clinic setting have longer breastfeeding duration rates.

Published 9 February 2006 in J Hum Lact, 22(1): 99-103.
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