Turning the Tide 2016: Conference

Dr Kestenberg has been a dentist in Private Practice for over 30 years. He is a consultant at Monash Medical Centre in Prosthodontics and Clinical Demonstrator and examiner for final year dental students at the University of Melbourne Dental School.  He is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Dental Surgeons.

Rachel Fuller has been supporting families with breastfeeding and early parenting for almost 15 years, initially as a volunteer breastfeeding counsellor with the ABA, prior to certifying as an IBCLC in 2008. Rachel has also undertaken training in infant sleep, child development and nutrition and is also an accredited provider of primary care Triple P (positive parenting program). Rachel is also a certified infant massage instructor. Rachel has worked in a variety of settings that support new parents through the challenges of early parenting, including as facilitator of maternal and child health new parent groups and a playgroup for families affected by post natal depression. Rachel has been an active volunteer for the Australian Breastfeeding Association since 1999 is currently the national President and Chair of the Board, a role she has held since 2011.

Carolyn Hastie is a mother, grandmother and midwife. She has been at the leading edge of midwifery practice and education for four decades. Her passion is improving care for childbearing women, partners and babies; her focus is on the neurophysiological intersection of growth, development and relationships for everyone involved. Among Carolyn’s achievements are, with her colleague, Professor Maralyn Foureur: gaining visiting rights to public hospitals in 1984, a first for Australia and starting the first public hospital midwives’ clinic in 1987. Carolyn commissioned and managed a quality award winning stand-alone midwifery service which included the option to birth at home. She has researched and written extensively on midwifery related subjects, including horizontal violence and bullying in midwifery after a young new graduate midwife she met at a workshop committed suicide in response to workplace bullying in 1996. Jodie’s suicide led Carolyn to seek ways to teach midwifery students and midwives the necessary skills to manage themselves and their relationships with colleagues in the workplace.

Professor Jeanine Young commenced in the School of Nursing and Midwifery in August 2013. Jeanine is a Registered Nurse, Registered Midwife and qualified neonatal nurse. She completed her PhD in infant care practices and their relationship with risk factors for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) in 1999 through the University of Bristol’s Faculty of Medicine. Jeanine has established a research program to investigate Queensland’s relatively high infant mortality rate, with a particular focus on developing evidencebased strategies and educational resources to assist health professionals in delivering Safe Sleeping messages to parents with young infants and to address Close the Gap targets to reduce Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander infant mortality. Jeanine has a special interest in infant care practices and in particular, breastfeeding and parent-infant bed-sharing issues. Jeanine authored the Queensland Health Safe Infant Sleeping guidelines, Safe Infant Sleep and Indigenous Safe Infant Sleep eLearning programs; and developed bedsharing information/position statements for SIDS and Kids, Australian College of Midwives, and Australian Breastfeeding Association. She chaired the SIDS and Kids National Scientific Advisory Committee 2008-2015 (current member) which works to ensure that safe sleeping public health recommendations are evidencebased and authored the consensus paper underpinning the 2012 Safe Sleep, My Baby public health campaign which reintroduced breastfeeding back into the Safe Sleep recommendations. Jeanine is also a member of the Australian College of Midwives Scientific Review and Advisory Committee which provides the ACM Board with advice on scientific matters, and prepares discussion papers and position statements to support midwifery practice.

Elaine Burns is an associate professor of Midwifery and director of Higher Degree Research and Honours, at Western Sydney University. Elaine is an experienced midwifery clinician, educator and researcher. Her research is focussed on breastfeeding, midwifery practice/education and the experience of maternity care. Elaine’s work is multidisciplinary and collaborative and is recognised nationally and internationally with a robust publication track record of more than 50 peer reviewed publications, and 60 conference and seminar presentations. Elaine has been awarded multiple research grants to further investigate barriers to breastfeeding and is passionate about improving support during pregnancy, birth and the early transition to mothering.

Mary-Rose MacColl’s The Birth Wars, which explores the core conflict preventing better maternity care for women and families, was long listed for the Walkley Award for Non-Fiction. Mary-Rose is the author of five novels including In Falling Snow and the just-released Swimming Home, both of which are stories of women who face enormous challenges and triumph.

In between breastfeeding her youngest boy, chasing after her oldest two boys, blogging and occasionally sleeping; Meg works with women to help them reach their breastfeeding goals. Meg has a degree in Psychology and was a La Leche League Leader (breastfeeding counsellor) for seven years before becoming an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, and her prior work was in counselling and sexual health. She writes frequently on her website about all things breastfeeding, is a guest blogger and has published articles in “Nurture Parenting Magazine” and “Natural Mother Magazine”. Needless to say she passionate about helping women reach their breastfeeding goals and loves helping to get the word out about how women can do this! She places a huge emphasis on sharing evidenced based research without the sugary coating.

Sarah Murnane is the founder of The Australian breastfeeding Project. She has been a motherhood photographer for 4 years and specialises in birth photography. Sarah is currently photographing woman all over the country to normalise breastfeeding and bring breastfeeding mothers together to feed the change.