Alyssa has been helping parents and babies with breastfeeding since 2002, first as a La Leche League Leader and since 2009 as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. Alyssa works in private practice serving clients worldwide, primarily through telehealth. She is the author of Breastfeeding Without Birthing: A Breastfeeding Guide for Mothers Through Adoption, Surrogacy, and Other Special Circumstances and a professional supplement to the book, The Breastfeeding Without Birthing Professional Pack online training. She is also the creator of DomHub, an extensive online resource for domperidone. Alyssa has authored articles for The Journal of Human Lactation: The Three Step Framework for Inducing LactationTM and Successful Co-Lactation by a Queer Couple: A Case Study. She has also authored articles for La Leche League’s Leader Today and Breastfeeding Today magazines and Adoptive Families magazine. She is an international speaker on the topics of inducing lactation, relactation, co-lactation, and other related topics. Alyssa is the proud mother of three breastfed children, two by birth and one by adoption. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
Presentation: Inducing lactation may seem like milk-making magic. How can the breasts make milk without the hormones of pregnancy followed by the hormonal shift that happens with birth? We can use what is already WELL-KNOWN about the endocrinology of lactation in general to understand how lactation happens in this very special circumstance. Parents inducing lactation may also present with more diverse hormonal profiles --think PCOS, post-menopause, trans woman, or intersex – and all these extraordinary parents can be supported with a flexible and customizable plan to make milk. The human body is amazingly adaptable, which is so clear when a person is lactating without gestating!
