Fed is Best

Christie del Castillo-Hegyi, MD, is a board-certified emergency physician and studies newborn brain injury and developmental disabilities caused by insufficient feeding. She cofounded the Fed Is Best Foundation when her own first-born son was harmed by unsafe advice on exclusive breastfeeding from breastfeeding books, breastfeeding classes, and health professionals. When she learned that these complications were happening on a daily basis to infants across the globe as a result of things commonly taught to parents, she and Jody Segrave-Daly launched the Foundation to raise awareness among parents and health professionals. She has advocated for safer breastfeeding practices at the NIH, the USDA, and to members of Congress, and, with Segrave-Daly, has met with the top officials of the World Health Organization breastfeeding guidelines program. She is a member of the Global Developmental Disabilities Research Collaborators and has coauthored papers documenting the rise in prevalence of multiple neurological and developmental disabilities among children across the globe.

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Jody Segrave-Daly, RN and retired IBCLC is a newborn nursery and newborn intensive care unit nurse and a staunch advocate for evidence-based feeding practices and perinatal mental health. Jody’s entire 30-year nursing career has been dedicated to caring for healthy and medically fragile babies in the nursery and NICU and has been providing community-based infant feeding support as a neonatal nurse and IBCLC for 12 years. She has comforted thousands of mothers all over the world that have contacted her for infant feeding consultations, who believed it was rare to under-produce breast milk and often felt betrayed by their healthcare teams, their own bodies, and the social pressure that insisted “Breast Is Best” for every family. Jody is the Fed is Best Foundation’s Clinical and Education Director, Director of Global Outreach, and Social Media Content Developer. In addition to writing evidence-based educational resources, she has implemented change by debunking infant feeding myths. Many of her resources have gone viral and have made a difference. She wrote the article “How to Breastfeed During the First 2 Weeks of Life” for the New York Times Parenting Edition.

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Lynnette Hafken, MA, IBCLC is a hospital and private practice lactation consultant, former La Leche League Leader, and advocate for family-centered lactation and infant feeding support. Lynnette’s goal throughout her 20-year vocation has been to help families breastfeed in a safe, enjoyable, and sustainable way; and in some cases transition to infant formula while knowing their babies would thrive from being loved and fed. As the Foundation’s director of support services, Lynnette applies her gift for listening to and connecting with parents to the advancement of the Fed Is Best vision for inclusive infant feeding support.

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