January is Mentoring Awareness Month. A mentor is defined as a trusted counselor, guide or coach who gives a younger or less experienced person help and advice over a period of time. Typically higher up on the organizational ladder or an authority in the field, the person establishes a long-term relationship with and is interested in the learner's personal growth. Mentors analyze a learner's strengths and weakness, support activities to improve weak areas, and nurture the learner's professional growth by providing advice, information and support.
Unlike the failed "Reaganomics" of the 1980's, "the trickle-down theory" works well with breastfeeding. Experienced older women have helped their friends and family members successfully birth and breastfeed their babies throughout history. We did not need lactation consultants and breastfeeding counselors because we all knew someone who breastfed.
Since America is now largely a bottle-feeding culture, we need mentors to help train young women in breastfeeding management. I am one of many lactation consultants who started breastfeeding my children then was mentored and trained to become a breastfeeding peer counselor. La Leche League International was my first experience with mentoring. I volunteered for five years, helping and supporting other new mothers who came to our meetings. After my last baby I was trained by WIC and Nutrition to be a breastfeeding peer counselor.
The backbone of any successful breastfeeding support program at home and abroad, the breastfeeding peer counselor has become the essential mentee in lactation management. She is usually a paraprofessional who gives basic breastfeeding information, support and encouragement to pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers, and serves as a role model for breastfeeding women. If you are in a position to mentor a breastfeeding mother, please do, I consider it a gift to humanity that keeps giving for years to come.