The first baby I ever latched on was my own. My first son, born five years ago this week, gave me quite a scare in his first week of life. He lost more than 10% of his birth weight, didn't pee or poop for days, had a sunken soft spot and lips as dry as the desert. No matter what I tried, I just couldn't get the boy to eat. When I went to visit the lactation consultant on his sixth day of life, I had no idea that the next hour would not only change my son's life, but mine as well. She not only got him latched pain free and taught me how to do the same when I got home, but she opened up a whole world to me that I never really knew existed. The world of the Lactation Consultant.

My first born went on to nurse for a year and a half, never a drop of formula to touch his lips. His younger brother followed suit, nursing for a happy 21 months until he waved goodbye to my breasts and said "bye bye mama milk". I knew when i was pregnant how important the health benefits of breastfeeding were and how important it was for me to try. It was the reason that I was so set on nursing my first child, even when my milk was slow to come in the first week of his life. What I didn't know until my first child arrived, however, was how strongly I would feel the urge to nurse my children deep in my bones. How the challenges of that first week felt deeply personal, and how I felt like it was a matter of utter importance that I be the one to nourish my child without supplement or compliment until he was old enough to eat food on his own.

I started going to breastfeeding support groups, meeting other mothers, and eventually began leading my own Mommy and Me groups. My background was Human Development so I came by the interest in parenting naturally. Eventually I started learning more about lactation and began a multi year journey towards becoming an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. Hundreds of clinical hours and coursework hours later, I sat for the exam that would give me the opportunity to help other mothers. Now, well into my work as an IBCLC, I feel truly blessed to do what I do.

Each time I help a mother and baby learn to nurse, I feel such a deep sense of wonder and pride and joy. Not for myself, but for the couplet I am helping. For that baby who is receiving precious breast milk and for that mother who is able to nourish her child from her body. Seeing parents shed tears when babies latch for the first time, seeing babies calm their crying as mothers place them skin to skin on my couch, seeing healthy children toddle their way towards me months after meeting them for the first time, I cant help but know that the work I do is truly one of the most special things I could have imagined doing with my life.

Jesse Zilberstein, MPA, IBCLC