Broken Sleep? 2020

McKenna pioneered the first behavioral and electrophysiological studies documenting differences between mothers and infants sleeping together and apart and has become known worldwide for his work in promoting studies of breast feeding and mother-infant co-sleeping.

A biological anthropologist, and director of the Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory McKenna began his career studying the social behavior and development of monkeys and apes with an emphasis on parenting behavior and ecology. He has published over 150 articles and six books including a popular parenting book Sleeping With Your baby: A Parents Guide To Co-sleeping. He has co-edited Ancestral Landscapes In Human Evolution, Evolutionary Medicine, and a more recent co-edited volume Evolution and Health: New Perspectives.

He won the prestigious Shannon Award (with Dr. Sarah Mosko) from the National Institutes of Child Health and Development for his SIDS research and is the nation’s foremost authority and spokesperson to the national press on issues pertaining to infant and childhood sleep problems, sleep development, and breastfeeding.

Kimberly Seals Allers is an award-winning journalist, author and a nationally recognized media commentator, consultant and advocate for breastfeeding and infant health. Kimberly’s fifth book, The Big Let Down—How Big Business, Medicine and Feminism Undermine Breastfeeding, was released to high acclaim. Kimberly most recently served project director of the First Food Friendly Community Initiative (3FCI), an innovative pilot project funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, designed to understand the impact of “place” as a social determinant of breastfeeding success and to engage multiple stakeholders to create a national accreditation for breastfeeding friendly communities. She currently leads nationwide workshops for health care professionals on cultural competency in breastfeeding support and is a prominent speaker on communitybased strategies to reduce the racial disparities in breastfeeding and infant mortality rates.

Dr Meghan Azad holds a Canada Research Chair in Developmental Origins of Chronic Disease. She is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Child Health at the University of Manitoba. Her research program (www.azadlab.ca) is focused on the role of infant nutrition and gut microbiota in the development of asthma, allergies and obesity. Dr. Azad co-leads the Manitoba site of the CHILD Study (www.childstudy.ca), a national pregnancy cohort following 3500 children to understand how early life experiences shape lifelong health. She is directing multiple projects related to lactation and infant feeding practices in the CHILD cohort, including integrated studies linking human milk composition and gut microbiota with epigenetic profiles and clinical phenotypes. Dr. Azad is an active member of the Breastfeeding Committee of Canada and the Winnipeg Breastfeeding Network, and she serves on the Executive Council for the International Society for Research in Human Milk and Lactation.

Dr Rebecca Byrne is an Accredited Practising Dietitian and Lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology. Her research examines what and how young children are fed, particularly the influence of feeding practices used by educators in the Early Childhood Education and Care setting on child eating behaviour and growth.

Rebecca is an advocate for the support and promotion of breastfeeding, and has been a volunteer breastfeeding counsellor with the Australian Breastfeeding Association for 12 years. She is a member of the Federal Government’s expert working group for the revision of Australia’s National Breastfeeding Strategy and leads research to improve the breastfeeding content of the curriculum for undergraduate dietetic courses.

Carly Grubb is an experienced consumer advocate with a background in Primary Education. She is a confirmed HDR candidate with the School of Health, University of the Sunshine Coast and her research project will focus on the co-design and testing of parent-facing educational resources, developed in collaboration with families, health professionals, and other key stakeholders. These resources will be accessible, relevant and family-centered, addressing safer sleep practices - including shared sleep - in ways that reflect the diverse needs and contexts of families. Carly is a skilled communicator, founding and leading the Australian-registered charity, Little Sparklers, which runs a large online peer support group (The Beyond Sleep Training Project; >195,000+ members) serving parents with young babies and toddlers. She has previously engaged with communities (on-line and in person) in participatory approach activities including co-design to co-create resources for each community’s unique needs, e.g. realistic expectations for infant and toddler sleep and a partner’s guide to support a breastfeeding mother’s sleep. Carly is a parent representative on the Australian Government’s Parents and Carers Reference Group, is a member of the Raising Children Network Parent and Carer Panel and is an active participant in the Thriving Queensland Kids Partnership as part of her role with Little Sparklers. Carly also participated as the consumer representative for Little Sparklers during the co-design of the Queensland Clinical Guidelines for Safer Infant Sleep.

Lyndsey is an experienced paediatric nurse, children’s public health nurse, IBCLC, researcher, responsive sleep/parenting advocate, and the author of 6 books. She has worked with children and families for more than 20 years within in-patient paediatrics, paediatric ambulatory care, NICU, and the community. Lyndsey is a PhD researcher at Swansea University, exploring the needs and challenges of medically complex breastfed infants and children, due to complete in Spring 2023. In 2019 she founded the Breastfeeding the Brave project to raise awareness of the unique lactation needs of sick children in the paediatric setting. Lyndsey is the co-founder and clinical director of the Holistic Sleep Coaching program and Thought Rebellion. She is a respected international speaker and also provides regular training, advocacy and consultancy to both NHS and private organisations.

Award-winning journalist & mama of two Liz Minchin was the ‘other mother’ for her first daughter, and ‘main mum’ for their second, facing different tricky feeding issues along the way. Her frank and wide-ranging talk will be followed by an ‘ask me anything’ session. Liz is currently the Executive Editor of TheConversation.com and in 2010 co-authored a book on big picture climate change solutions, called Screw Light Bulbs.

She is also the daughter of pioneering medical historian and health educator Maureen Minchin.