Joy Williams
RN, BScN, CCE, PNC (c), IBCLC

Please join us as we congratulate MCNIG member Joy Williams for receiving MCNIG’s 2008 Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) Perinatal Certification Award. Each year, MCNIG sets aside a portion of our budget to reimburse one member for successful certification, on a first-come first-served basis, as funding permits.

Joy Williams is a highly deserving recipient of this award, given her contributions and accomplishments within the maternal-child nursing field, and in particular related to breastfeeding education.

Joy Williams has been a Lactation Consultant (LC) since 1994, and currently works as an LC at The Credit Valley Hospital Breastfeeding Clinic in Mississauga, Ontario. CVH offers inpatient and outpatient LC services 7 days per week, including 2600 visits annually to its Breastfeeding clinic and over 700 visits to its Advanced Level 2 Nursery.

Joy is the Chairperson of the CVH Breastfeeding Team, which was formed in 2006 to meet the needs of an external patient satisfaction survey. This survey indicated that many new families did not feel optimally empowered or consistently educated related to the principles of successful breastfeeding. This multidisciplinary tear, including LCs and front line nurses from L&D, Special Care Nursery, Postpartum and Paediatrics, developed and delivered a 4-hour breastfeeding education workshop for staff.

MCNIG is proud to support the fact that the team used the “RNAO Breastfeeding Best Practice Guidelines” as well as The Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding to develop the curriculum for the education. Having nurses from each of the maternal-child units gave ownership to the nurses as they developed the curriculum, which included such topics as: The 10 Steps to Successful Breastfeeding, effects of birth practices on breastfeeding babies, importance of breastfeeding, risks of formula feeding, building a mother’s self confidence, effective positioning and latching, identifying effective milk transfer at the breast, establishment and maintenance of milk supply, hand expression of milk, and use of breastfeeding interventions.

Joy was also involved in the revision of the CVH prenatal breastfeeding curriculum which now includes the risks of formula feeding. This allows families to make an informed decision about the use of formula for their new babies.

A poster presentation titled “Transition of the Newborn from Birth to Breast: Nurse-led breastfeeding education” outlining the process of this CVH project was presented at the AWHONN Canada Obstetrics conference in Ottawa in October 2008. Congratulations to Joy and her colleague (Lena Lloyd) for receiving 2nd prize in the poster competition! For those of you who were not able to attend AWHONN Canada’s conference, you can view the poster online.

Since the completion of the workshops for staff at CVH, a 1-hour education session was offered for all of the paediatricians at CVH, plaques of “The 10 Steps to Successful Breastfeeding” were placed on the walls of all the maternal-child units, and an in-patient breastfeeding class was developed and is now taught twice a day. The in-patient breastfeeding class reinforces the information taught in the prenatal breastfeeding classes at CVH and allows families who did not take prenatal classes to share and learn with the LC and other breastfeeding families.

Should you wish to connect with Joy, she can be reached via e-mail at williams6057@rogers.com.