Look Who's Talking Lecture Series: Oct 16 Webinar Recap

Whatcha Say, Baby?

presented by Catherine Watson Genna

Catherine Watson Genna was a SMASH!!

Catherine Watson Genna, of course, is well known in the lactation world for her book (now in its 3rd edition) Supporting Sucking Skills in Breastfeeding Infants. Her resume is so extensive, over 20 pages long, and includes books, chapters in books, lectures, and more peer reviewed articles than most could even dream of. She is a true pioneer in the field of lactation.

On October 16, she presented the “Whatcha Say, Baby?” (¿Qué me quieres decir, bebé? in Spanish) webinar for the Binational Breastfeeding Coalition (BBC) and it included 3 topics:

• Assessing Suck Swallow Patterns

• Facilitating Infant Competence: Hand Use During Latch, and

• Whatcha Say, Baby? Infant Communication.

Ms. Watson provided comprehensive technical information on suck and swallow and used multiple videos, photographs and personal anecdotes to illustrate how newborns use their hands to communicate. She gracefully answered many questions and in the full three hours only took one short break!

Who joined us? We had an incredible turnout! There were 225 people who completed the three lectures. We had lactation professionals, nurses, physicians, dietitians, peer counselors, community health workers, and more in attendance from 34 states across the United States and 12 states across Mexico! Also represented were 13 countries and 6 continents. We had participants from Australia, South Africa, Ecuador, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Poland, the UK and Spain.

This was our first seminar conducted online. There were other firsts for us too:

• our first international audience that reached beyond the U.S. and Mexico

• the first time we were able to provide simultaneous Spanish interpretation during a conference, and

• the first time in our lecture series in which we were able to offer credits to dieticians.

We were fortunate to have great partners such as University Medical Center of El Paso, which provided nursing credits, and American Heart Association, which facilitated the registration and video teleconference capabilities along with the technical support needed to carry out the webinar. We are grateful to El Paso Health for their support as well and especially grateful for our hard working and tireless members for helping in making this webinar a reality.

Of course, we need to give a special thanks to Catherine Watson Genna for being the wonderful, friendly and approachable person that she is and for sharing her immense knowledge.

If you were among those who attended, the Binational Breastfeeding Coalition wants to thank you for joining us and making this such an incredible and unique gathering of people who love human lactation.

This lecture would not have been possible without the support of the following organizations:

The Binational Breastfeeding Coalition is about to commemorate our 10th anniversary, so stay tuned for a celebration in 2022!