Annalee considers herself foremost a mother to four great kids, happily married
since 1984. After supporting her husband through his graduate degree, she
became a stay-at-home mom.
As a new mother who encountered severe breastfeeding challenges, she
sought out those who were qualified to help her. Unfortunately, when her first
son was born in 1988, there were few IBCLC’s, and they were mostly unheard of
as a profession. She survived as a breastfeeding mom, only due to countless
tearful phone calls to the local La Leche League and the support of mother to
mother groups.
In 2001, Annalee sought the qualifications to be able to return the support to
other mothers in need, and became a Lactation Educator (CLE), through the
UCSD extension-based course. She worked at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for
Women’s New Beginnings Boutique for a couple of years part-time before
deciding to return to the UCSD Ext. Lactation Consultant program to take her
skills to the clinical level. After acquiring the skills necessary to be an IBCLC,
through the classroom and clinical hours at local hospital post-partum wards,
she qualified to sit for the (IBCLE) exam and attained board certification in 2005.
Describing her primary motivation to become an IBCLC, Annalee says,
“Although I persisted and ultimately had favorable breastfeeding experiences
with my children, I could have suffered far less pain and trauma if I had seen a
Board Certified Lactation Consultant, after going home from the hospital. I
could have corrected my problems much sooner with the help and insight of an
IBCLC. While well-meaning, mother to mother groups are great for ongoing
breastfeeding support and education, they can only fix so much. I needed a
professional to identify and teach me how to correct what was going wrong."
Annalee is a member of the International Lactation Consultant Association, the
newly established United States Lactation Consultant Association and the San
Diego County Breastfeeding Coalition.
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