Carmen Baker-Clark: Impact of Movement Throughout Pregnancy and Beyond on Baby's Feeding and Development | WAM146

Well-Adjusted Mama

Carmen Baker is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) with a BA from Princeton University in Art and Archaeology. Her sons, born in 1991, 1994, 1996 and 2000, continue to be her inspiration. Through and with them, she has experienced so many of the challenges and joys of breastfeeding and parenting. These have challenged her to thoughtfully explore concepts and ideas that formed her beliefs in the importance of listening to your gut and doing what feels right for you, your child and your family. Her repeated interactions with so many families has led her to see that there constantly is a tremendous need for loving breastfeeding support with up-to-date research and evidence based information as its foundation, for all those individuals caring for young children.

Carmen has been helping parents breastfeed their babies since 1998 when she became a La Leche League Leader, continuing on as an IBCLC since 2005 working in private practice doing home visits, and since 2008 adding work in the hospital setting.

From 2008-2011, Carmen was one of the IBCLCs that followed and counseled approximately 900 mother/baby couplets as part of a research study at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. From 2011-2012, she worked as Breastfeeding Manager for North Hudson WIC supervision several Breastfeeding Peer Counselors and seeing a few hundred participants. Since then she has been working as manager of the Lactation Program at Hoboken UMC and Christ Hospital seeing over 1200 dyads a year.

In all three of these settings, Carmen has encountered many situations of high medical complexity which have provided invaluable perspective into what parents experience with these challenges while trying to establish and succeed in breastfeeding their babies.

Carmen is a conference speaker, and over the last 15 years some of the topics have been: The First Three Days, Tongue-Tie and Its Impact on Breastfeeding and Beyond, Economics of Breastfeeding. She helps manage and run a New Moms Support Group in the Hoboken Area, and she is involved in NJ State Groups that help advocate for legislation that protects and promotes access for breastfeeding services to all.

Carmen is passionate about the work she does and she truly loves nurturing new families through their breastfeeding journey and tailoring solutions to suit their unique needs.

For more information about Carmen, go to http://www.breastfeedingmomma.com/

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