Becoming an IBCLC
Your 500 hours, beside somebody who has done them.
The OBC Breastfeeding Medicine Program takes students through the directly supervised clinical hours the IBLCE exam asks for, with mentors who are doing the work every day. It starts with an hour on the phone, not an application.
Start here
The Choosing Your Pathway discovery consult
Sixty minutes, virtual, with your potential IBCLC mentors and the OBC Education Directors. We go through what IBLCE is, which mentorship pathway suits you, the prerequisites, the 95+ hours of lactation-specific courses, clinical training with the OBC, sitting the exam, and what becoming an OBC IBCLC afterwards looks like.
We will review your professional goals, your prerequisites and your availability. If you are accepted into the programme, we finish the hour on tuition payment plans and scheduling your first day as a mentee. It is also how you are considered for mentorship at all, so it is the first step rather than one of several.
What the programme is
Hours, mentors, and people to ask.
500 supervised hours
Directly supervised clinical hours for Pathway 1 and Pathway 3 students. If you need fewer than 500, the programme flexes and you can work across several mentors.
A primary mentor, and the rest of us
You are assigned one mentor and work with a group of IBCLCs whose backgrounds include mental health, oral habilitation, rhythmic movements, nursing, parenting, infant sleep education, midwifery, nutrition, naturopathic medicine, kinesiology and holistic pharmacy.
Twelve monthly meetups
Mentor meetups every month, so the year has a room full of people in it rather than one supervisor and a logbook.
Where the in-person hours are
Much of the mentorship is virtual, and there are in-person opportunities for observation and clinical care in Lindsay, Milton, Mississauga, New Liskeard, Niagara, Norfolk, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough and Waterloo, with more being added.
The shape of it
What you’re signing up to.
There is a maximum completion date of 18 months from your start date. Extensions beyond that are available at an additional fee.
Tuition and payment plans are discussed in the discovery consult, once we both know the pathway you are on.
Acceptance into the programme happens through that consult. It is a conversation with your potential mentors, not a form.
Afterwards
An interview waiting for you.
Graduates of the OBC Breastfeeding Medicine Program are offered a guaranteed interview with our Teams Committee, where you are considered for an IBCLC position with the OBC. It is optional, and it reflects how confident we are in the people this programme produces.
What that job looks like is written out on Join our LC team, terms and all.
Not becoming an IBCLC
Already in practice, and out of your depth on feeding?
Nurses, physicians, midwives, dentists, bodyworkers, doulas, peer supporters, dietitians and naturopaths all meet feeding problems without having been taught to recognise them. The same programme will teach you to identify and respond to lactation risk factors prenatally, through birth, in the fourth trimester and beyond, and you can use it the week after you learn it.
Does your community have enough of us?
Most do not. Book the hour, find out where you stand, and we will tell you honestly what the road looks like from there.
