Dr. Jack Newman is coming to Manila!

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I cannot contain my excitement!!  Breastfeeding rockstar Dr. Jack Newman is coming to Manila!  If you don't know who he is - well, he is THE breastfeeding expert in North America.  He is a pediatrician who has dedicated his life to helping children breastfeed.

In his website,Breastfeeding Inc., he has several videos especially useful to new moms.  When N was a newborn, I spent many nights watching his videos.  When E was born, I went back to his videos to help me remember how it was like breastfeeding a newborn.  Whenever I counsel or encourage new moms, I always refer them to Dr. Newman's videos.

Aside from being a consultant for UNICEF's Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative, he is also a founding member of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine - a world wide organization of physicians dedicated to the promotion, protection and support of breastfeeding and human lactation.  ABM releases protocols which are very useful when facing challenges or incorrect information from pediatricians who claim to be breastfeeding friendly but are actually the opposite.

Dr. Newman has been a visionary in breastfeeding practices and a lot of his ideas have now been accepted as best breastfeeding practices such as the concept of breast compression used as a means of getting more milk and that breastfeeding problems are solvable challenges and not reasons for weaning.  Because Filipino pediatricians often tell moms to stop breastfeeding because their babies are jaundiced, his Facebook status about this is my favorite resource.

I'm very happy to announce that LATCH is bringing Dr. Jack Newman to Manila! And this all happened in less than one month!  One of my breast-friends Velvet shared that Dr. Newman will be speaking in Indonesia at the end of August.  I had long wanted to hear him speak and since Indonesia was not that far away, I emailed the organizers.  However, I found out that the Indonesian conference would be mostly in Bahasa Indonesia, except for Dr. Jack's talk.  Plus, the Indonesian 2-day workshop is about 3.5M rupiahs or more than 15,000 pesos, not including translator fees!

I took the chance and emailed Dr. Newman if he would be willing to pass by the Philippines after his Indonesian trip and he said YES!!  Hooray!! And because LATCH wanted to encourage a lot of Filipinos to attend his talk, the symposium is reasonably priced at P1,500.  However, those who will pre-register will pay only P1,100.  This is such a steal!

Further, if you are thinking of getting accredited as LATCH peer counselor, then you must attend this symposium because this is one of the pre-requisites for the next batch of LATCH trainees.  There are limited seats available so you must hurry and register!  Get more details at this site: breastfeedinguncovered.eventbrite.com

There are more activities for August lined up - a flash mob, a breastfeeding congress, a book launch.. so stay tuned!!