About The NDC Lactation Fellowship
The NDC Fellowship vision
-
An extension of existing NDC Institute courses, to enable advanced practitioners in Neuroprotective Developmental Care to extend their knowledge, skills and expertise to the highest possible level in lactation medicine
-
Two streams [Stream 1 for health professionals; Stream 2 for medical practitioners] to allow for participants to optimise key skills while working within their discipline-specific scope of practice
-
A platform for advanced practitioners to discuss cases and issues, which welcomes rigorous debate, disagreement, and discussion
-
Completed Fellows will be able to use the terms NDC Lactation Fellow (NDCLF), or NDC Lactation Consultant (NDCLC).
Who can participate?
The NDC Institute is delighted to launch the Neuroprotective Developmental Care Lactation Fellowship, which offers advanced upskilling in lactation medicine (clinical lactation and breastfeeding support) for NDC Accredited health professionals, who are all registered with their specific professional bodies in their own countries.
You can join the NDC Fellowship by purchasing LACTATION FELLOWSHIP in your dashboard. Costs are here.
The NDC Lactation Fellowship aims to meet a breastfeeding medicine doctor’s learning needs, and then invites other health professionals to engage the content in a way that is relevant to their own scope of practice.
Pre-requisites
-
NDC Accreditation, completed either with The NDC Institute or the Possums charity any time prior to its closure. (If you paid to enter the NDC Accreditation pathway with the Possums charity but didn't complete prior to the charity's closure, and would like to resume, please email our Education Manager at education@ndcinstitute.com.au, as The NDC Institute is now in the position to help you re-join without you incurring extra cost.)
-
Membership of Maintenance of NDC Accreditation.
What is involved?
-
Self-paced online learning from 30 sequential modules (but you can access these in an order that suits your own preference), estimated 3 hours of learning time for each module, including guest speakers and video recordings
-
Regular Fellowship Live Network Hour (1 hour available every month; 6 'live online' attendances compulsory prior to graduating)
-
Stream 1 for registered health professionals
-
Stream 2 for medical practitioners
-
-
2026 curriculum = 29 modules at about 2.5 hours each [2024-2025 roadmap had 13 modules, now broken down into shorter modules but more of them on the range of necessary topics] (including the relevant recorded or live online guest speaker presentation + Fellowship Live Network Hour)
-
2026 purchase gives you 5 years access [2024-2025 purchase lasts 24 months access after purchase of each module]. This 5 year period acknowledges that, in our experience as educators in this space over the past 12 years, health professionals are often managing multiple responsibilities and roles, and often need more time to complete a course than they anticipated initially.
-
Up to 5 years to complete
-
Upskill at your own rate
-
Join at any time and pause at any time (within a 5 year period).
-
Who will deliver the NDC Lactation Fellowship?
Dr Pamela Douglas is a lactation medicine doctor, Fellow of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, general practitioner, and researcher, who began her general practice career in an Australian First Nations' community controlled health service in 1987. She first qualified as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant in 1994, and started publishing breastfeeding-related research in international journals from 2005. Pam's passion right throughout her professional life has been to make a contribution towards improved wellbeing for breastfeeding women and their infants. She is a Royal Australian College of General Practitioners' Education Provider.
Pam's 30 or so research publications have a foundational focus on
-
Clinical breastfeeding and lactation support;
-
How the societal disruption of the evolutionary norm of breastfeeding has resulted in widespread health system confusion concerning a range of infant behaviours or signs, which in turn has resulted in
-
High levels of maternal and infant distress
-
Overpathologising of both mother and infant in clinical breastfeeding and lactation management
-
Treatments for breastfeeding problems which lack efficacy or even worsen outcomes;
-
-
Mechanobiology and human breastfeeding and lactation.
Guest presenters are helping build the content of the NDC Lactation Fellowship
The NDC Institute has invited in numerous guest presenters who will help build the content of the NDC Lactation Fellowship, by drawing on the work of expert researchers and clinicians in the fields of human lactation and infant care.
- You can find the Guest Speaker program here.
The NDC Lactation Fellowship Curriculum
You can find the curriculum (content covered in 29 modules over four semesters, self-paced) here.
The NDC Lactation Fellowship Workbook and Calendar are available if you purchase registration with the NDC Lactation Fellowship, and are also available in the final module of the NDC Accreditation portal.
At least 6 Fellowship Live Online Hours need to be attended live, and you can log these yourself.
How does the NDC Lactation Fellowship interface with IBLCE and the NABBLM curriculums?
The NDC Lactation Fellowship
-
Covers the curriculum of the North American Board of Breastfeeding and Lactation Medicine, preparing candidates to sit this exam if eligible (only available to North American doctors).
-
Meets the Lactation Specific Education requirements for the International Board Certification of Lactation Consultants examination eligibility process. You can find IBLCE's detailed content outline here. If you wish to sit the IBLCE exam, you will also need 300-1000 hours of observation (depending on your IBLCE pathway) which you would need to organise independently.
-
The NDC Lactation Fellowship meets eligibility criteria as an education provider for IBCLE CERPs, if you are already an IBCLC, which will need to be self-logged with IBLCE. That is, you can meet your IBLCE re-certification requirements by becoming an NDC Lactation Consultant (or Lactation Fellow). Please note that although The NDC Institute can't allocate those CPD points on your behalf with IBLCE, IBLCE agrees that you can self-log L-CERPs by engaging NDC courses.
-
Offers an alternative advanced qualification reflecting expertise in Lactation and Infant care without the requirement for 300-1000 clinical hours (unsupervised or supervised depending on your IBLCE pathway). Instead, participants access dozens of Clinical Demonstrations between Pam or NDC Educator Renee Keogh RN IBCLC conducted with volunteer patients, either recorded or live online, drawing on the latest evidence-based skills in lactation medicine. The NDC Lactation Fellowship doesn't include more supervised clinical hours, because our participants are already health professionals registered with the relevant supervisory registration Board in their own country, and who already work clinically with families and infants. (This is different to IBLCE, which certifies providers who don't have tertiary health professional qualifications and registration).
How to register
You can join the NDC Fellowship by purchasing LACTATION FELLOWSHIP in your dashboard. Then you will be able to access the content guide, workbook, and other materials.
Please contact our NDC Educator Ms Bree Cosgrove at b.cosgrove@ndcinstitute.com.au if you have questions.
Related resources
The NDC Lactation Fellowship: what makes it different
The NDC Lactation Fellowship: upskilling leaders in lactation medicine
The NDC Lactation Fellowship: cost and comparisons
NDC Lactation Fellowship Curriculum (Transitioning from interim 2024-25 curriculum to the final 2026 curriculum)
The Lactation Medicine Lab - live online 2026
