Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC Ithaca, NY

about Diane Wiessinger

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, has a private practice in Ithaca, NY. She self-publishes a collection of breastfeeding handouts on CD, most of which are also on her website, www.normalfed.com. Other publications include chapters in Smith's The ABC's of Private Practice and Genna's Supporting Sucking Skills in Breastfeeding Infants, and assorted published articles and essays. She is best-known for her article, Watch Your Language!, and for eating hamburgers to demonstrate latch. "Wiessingerizing" - normalizing breastfeeding - has become a verb in some circles. She is co-author, with Diana West and Teresa Pitman, of the 8th edition of La Leche League International's Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, available this summer.

official bio

Diane Wiessinger holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Cornell University. At her first La Leche League meeting in 1980 she saw a roomful of women all focused on their children, and thought to herself, 'There is more to me than this.'" However, she went on to become a La Leche League Leader in 1985 and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant in 1990. She has a private practice in Ithaca, NY, has written many breastfeeding resources, most recently co-authoring La Leche League International's 8th edition of the Womanly Art of Breastfeeding. She has spoken across the English-speaking world. Apparently there isn’t any more to her than this! She is the mother of two breastfed sons, mother-in-law of two wonderful young women and grandmother of two beautiful breastfed children.

presentations

Diane Wiessinger is pleased to provide presentations on the following topics to professional and parenting conferences. Presentations on other topics may be available upon request and subject to sufficient development lead-time. (For CERP topics, required paperwork will be provided promptly to meet CERP deadlines)

What Would Mammals Do?
90 - 90 minutes
CERP

What happens to infant feeding when mammals are deprived of their chosen place, time, and sensations of birth? What if the birth is too hard… or too easy? The not-so-surprising implications our mammalian ancestry has for how we give birth and begin the process of mothering in modern America. Note: This talk covers birth, breastfeeding, starting solids, weaning, and the mother-baby relationship. It resonates extremely well with audiences, is perhaps the most important talk that I do, and is appropriate, surprising, and informative for both breastfeeding and birthing specialist audiences.

Watch Your Language!
90 - 90 minutes
CERP

Our word choice often promotes formula-feeding. Even the researchers get it wrong! Learn how words like "still", "but", and "ideal" can undermine breastfeeding, look at how research outcomes change when the focus changes, and begin to develop a new and truly supportive language. Note: A breastfeeding culture must also have a strong sense of breastfeeding as our biological norm. So far, we frame almost everything as if formula feeding were safe and normal. It takes a while to learn to reframe our thinking; there's no better time to start than now!

Everything Old is New Again: Updates on Latching
60 - 120 minutes
CERP

Babies haven't changed, but our understanding of how they attach to the breast certainly has! A journey through more than 20 years of visuals and text, to the latest, surprisingly simple, conclusions.Note: Participants may start in any of a number of places along the "understanding path". This talk is designed to help move participants from wherever they are to a more confident, simpler, more mother-and-baby-friendly understanding of how babies attach to the breast.

Tigers Through Hoops -The Baby Who Won't Latch
60 - 90 minutes
CERP

Baby's normal, mother's normal, but something's going on in that baby's head that keeps him from breastfeeding. How can we persuade the "psychological non-latcher" that he wants to breastfeed?Note: This is not about the baby who can't breastfeed for physical reasons, though I spend a bit of time on that, but the baby who's been traumatized in some way so that he won’t latch. I talk about some really unusual things that have worked besides time and patience and skin-to-skin, and about our need for tools that haven't yet been created. I'm reassured by the notion that if we can get a tiger to jump through a hoop - something it's absolutely not designed to do - then we can certainly help babies begin to breastfeed, since they're absolutely designed to. This one could be expanded into a workshop to allow the audience to tell their standard and unusual stories about "psychological non-latchers."

Everything Else About Breasts
75 - 120 minutes
CERP

A look at fashion through the ages, health claims and their possible problems, lymph drainage, breast surgery, and breast cancer. There's even a little bit about breastfeeding. Note: This talk covers territory we may never even have considered, no matter how many years we've been "thinking about breasts." It may even change how participants think about their own.

US Birth vs Research Realities
60 - 90 minutes
CERP

Jocelyn is a real woman who had three very different birth experiences. This talk is a transcription of her recounting, accompanied by slides that dispute or support the actions taken along the way. There is time at the end for story-sharing and brainstorming large or small actions that each of us can take to improve birth in the US. Note: Jocelyn's stories of her hospital, birth center, and home births were so compelling that I asked if I might type while she talked. Most women can relate to her experiences, and most of us can find ways to smooth the path for the mothers yet to be. Especially good for smaller groups.