Expert Panel on Breastfeeding

The Expert Panel on Breastfeeding serves as the key catalyst for innovations in research, education and policy regarding the use of human milk and breastfeeding.

Inaugural Year: 2002

Chair:
Eric Hodges, PhD, FNP-BC, FAAN
Associate Professor
UNC-Chapel Hill School of Nursing

Vice Chair:

Board Liaison: Versie Mallard Johnson

Staff Liaison: Madeleine Rohrbach

Previous Chairs: JoAnne Silbert-Flagg (2020-2022), Elizabeth Reifsnider (2019-2020), Jeannette Crenshaw (2018-2019), Emily Drake (2017-2018), Joan Dodgson (2016-2017), Diane Spatz (2015-2016),  Paula Meier (2007), Linda Pugh (2007), Pamela Dee Hill (2006), Sharron S. Humenick (2006), Maureen Groer (2005), Gene Cranston Anderson (2003-2005) 

Summary:
The lack of breastfeeding in the United States is a public health crisis. Today only 13% of US children receive exclusive human milk for the first 6 months despite the recommendation by organizations worldwide that all infants receive exclusive human milk for 6 months.

Recent Publications:

• Policy Brief: Supporting breastfeeding for infants born to opioid-dependent mothers June 18, 2018 (September-October 2018) 
• Policy Brief: Pregnant and Parenting Women with a Substance Use Disorder: Actions and Policy for Enduring Therapeutic Practice (March-April 2019)
• Policy Brief: Call for improved military policy to support breastfeeding among U.S. armed forces. (May/June 2017) 
• Policy Brief: Call to Action - Human milk and breastfeeding: An intervention to mitigate toxic stress. (February 2017) 
  
• Policy Brief: Position statement regarding the use of informally shared human milk. (January 2016) 
• Policy Brief: Core competencies in human milk and breastfeeding: Policy and practice implications for nurses. (July 2014)
• Policy Brief: A call to action: Ensuring reasonable break time for nursing mothers. (March 2013) 
• Policy Brief: WIC (The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children): Policy versus practice regarding breastfeeding. (November 2013)
• Policy Brief: The surgeon general’s call to breastfeeding action-policy and practice implications for nurses. (May 2011) 

Resources:

• Call to Action on Breastfeeding - Testimony Submitted by the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses
• Testimony to the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine

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