Hi, I’m Lyndsey Hookway.
I qualified as a paediatric nurse in 2004, having received a fairly standard 2 hour training on breastfeeding and bottle feeding. I quickly realized that this training was woefully inadequate and in no way prepared me for working on the paediatric ward. I funded my own training, read a great deal, sat in on infant feeding clinics and kept learning. I eventually trained as a health visitor, and then as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC), qualifying in 2011.
In 2010, my eldest breastfed child was admitted to hospital for a week with meningitis. She had several other challenges that made feeding difficult, and the support I needed was impossible to find, though we continued to breastfeed until she was 3 years old. In 2016 my second child became critically ill very suddenly. She was admitted with sepsis, but subsequently diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. She endured 26 months of chemotherapy and was breastfed throughout.
My research, support work and advocacy are thus the culmination of both professional frustration and personal lived experience.
You can download my CV here.