Back to the Latch: Reflexes, Postural Stability and Functional Competency

Avery Wilson Young, M.S, M.Ed, IBCLC & Jennifer Tow, B.F.A, M.A, IBCLC, LMT, CSOM

Aug 14 & Aug 21, 2022, 1:00 PM –3:00 PM

What happens when good oral assessment and habilitation skills don’t result in functional feeding? Moving from compensation to competency in complex cases often involves parallel interventions to support milk supply, investigate gut or endocrine issues, ensure breast health and provide ongoing emotional support. With so many moving parts, returning to the latch is often the critical missing step in gaining functional competency. Relying on the precept that a baby who doesn’t breastfeed cannot breastfeed, therefore a baby who can, will, we focus on the reflexes and postural stability babies require to achieve functional competency at breast.

Fee: $277

IBCLCMasterClass Discount: $247

OBJECTIVES:

Describe the role of reflexes in the body’s development

Understand the importance of latching in the developmental trajectory of the infant

Be able to describe the reflexive process that infants go through to be able to latch

Comprehend the difference between compensatory and functional latching

Understand the importance of the IBCLC in helping to develop the latching skills in the baby and feeding parent

Understand a step by step process to develop and support latching skills

Troubleshoot common latching difficulties, using the reflexes as a guideline to understanding function

4 LCERPs

Presented Live & recorded (3 months recording access). 

Avery Young is an International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant with Master's degrees in both Biology and Science Education. Avery spent a decade in education before moving into her current career, where she has been a lactation consultant for 8 years. Her private practice, Nourished Young, is located in Atlanta, Georgia. She focuses heavily on infants with latching and feeding challenges and helping feeding feel easier for anxious parents.

Avery has spent the last 5 years studying and observing infant reflexes, and experimenting with how to intentionally engage these reflexes during the feeding process. This exploration not only transformed her ability to help infants feed better, but also helped her recognize the significance of the reflexive process not just for feeding, but in providing the physiological foundation for the global development of the infant.

She believes that using infant reflexes to help solve feeding challenges not only helps infants feed better, but can also help to change the developmental trajectory of an infant, and functional latching provides the key.

Jennifer Tow has practiced holistic lactation and guided parents in raising their children holistically for over 30 years. A fascination with the physiology of wellness has led her on a decades-long journey exploring the influences on infant health that come to define long-term human well-being. She has special interest in the areas of epigenetics and the microbiome, gut-brain health, airway function and oral functional competency, exploring the profoundly far-reaching implications of this work for breastfeeding dyads.

While residing between the USA & France from 2010-12, Jennifer established an international client base and now sees most of her clients on-line, specializing in collaborating with her clients in resolving complex breastfeeding issues. With a Master's in Holistic Health Coaching, her reputation for guiding parents through these issues stems from her ability to integrate holistic modalities and an expanded skill-set, such as myofunctional therapy and craniosacral fascial therapy, into her practice.

She is a writer and lecturer, offering workshops internationally and via webinar on breastfeeding & epigenetics, gut health & healing, tongue-tie & airway development and holistic breastfeeding practices. After a decade in development, she now offers a year-long advanced course in Integrative and Holistic Lactation. She is a founding member of IATP (the International Affiliation of Tongue-tie Professionals) and is the Breastfeeding Section Leader of the AAPMD (American Academy of Physiological Medicine and Dentistry) and founder of the Holistic Lactation Institute. Jennifer is the mother of three children born at home in 1988, 1992 and 1998 and a granddaughter born at home in 2009. Contact: IBCLCMasterClass@gmail.com.