Meet Diana

Lactation Consultant

Breastfeeding my own three sons was a deeply rewarding and enriching experience, so my passion is helping parents discover the joy and fulfillment of parenthood through breastfeeding. It wasn’t always easy (in fact, sometimes it was pretty tough), but it taught me how to be a mother. The power of breastfeeding to positively transform families never ceases to amaze me, and it inspires me to help parents in every way possible.

I’m an international board certified lactation consultant (IBCLC) in New Jersey, USA, with twenty years of experience working with breastfeeding parents and babies. I have a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. I began my work as a La Leche League Leader (volunteer breastfeeding counselor) in 1998, and then became an IBCLC in 2002 and recertified by exam in 2012. In 2002, I opened my first lactation consultation practice in Gaithersburg, Maryland, offering home visits in the Washington, DC, suburbs. After moving to New Jersey, I began a new practice called Mahala Lactation and Perinatal Services, LLC, with Elizabeth Myler, offering home and office visits in northern New Jersey. I left Mahala at the end of 2014 to concentrate my energies on writing and lecturing.

I developed and market a collection of lactation consultation clinical and administrative forms. Between 2013-2018, I owned and managed an annual educational conference in Philadelphia, USA, concentrating on lactation clinical skills called LCinPP (Lactation Consultant in Private Practice) Clinical Day. I’ve been on the Editorial Review Board for the Journal of Clinical Lactation and I’ve been a member of the International Lactation Consultant Association (ILCA) and Monetary Investment for Lactation Consultant Certification Board of Directors. I am also a certified childhood sexual education trainer. I was the Director of Media Relations for La Leche League International for six years. I worked as the inhouse lactation consultant for PumpinPal for two years. For a short while in 2022, I worked as a programming manager for Breastfeeding Conferences. I offer virtual lactation consultations as time allows.

Author

I am the co-author or sole author of several books and publications:

Making More Milk: The Breastfeeding Guide to Increasing Your Milk Production, 2nd edition

McGraw-Hill, 2019
Co-authored with Lisa Marasco

The Breastfeeding Mother’s Guide to Making More Milk , 1st edition

McGraw-Hill, 2008
Co-authored with Lisa Marasco

Sweet Sleep: Naptime and Nighttime Strategies for the Breastfeeding Family

Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, 2014
Co-authored with Diane Wiessinger, Linda J. Smith, and Teresa Pitman

La Leche League International’s The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, 8th edition

Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, 2010
Co-authored with Diane Wiessinger and Teresa Pitman

Breastfeeding After Breast and Nipple Procedures (clinical monograph)

Hale Publishing, 2008
Co-authored with Dr. Elliot Hirsch

Clinician’s Breastfeeding Triage Tool

International Lactation Consultant Association, 2007-2014
Co-authored with a team of international lactation professionals
Three editions

Defining Your Own Success: Breastfeeding After Breast Reduction Surgery

La Leche League International, 2001

Learn more about my book publications

Learn more about my research publications

Learn more about my published articles

Speaker

I have been speaking at conferences in North America and around the world since 2001.

Researcher

My first research paper with a team of researchers on a qualitative study about transmen’s birthing and chestfeeding experiences through the University of Ottawa was published in 2016.

Website Developer

I created and owned Lactspeak.com, a lactation speaker listing service, from 2004-2014. I own, developed, and manage the popular BFAR.org, LowMilkSupply.org, and MakingMoreMilk.com, LactForms.com, and LC4.me websites, as well as this one. I developed and currently manage DutyandDuty.com and LactationEducationConsultants.com. I’ve also developed and managed other websites over the years, including previous versions of the LLLusa.org and IBLCE.org websites.

Once upon a time, back in the late dot.com era of the 1990’s, my ex-husband and I developed the technology for a website called Mothers’ Online Thrift Shop, a virtual (online) consignment shop for mothers to sell family clothes and products online, paying us a commission of the sale for the service. This was an innovative technology then, predating Half.com (an online used bookseller that was huge at the time and later purchased by eBay). We filed a patent application for the technology, but it was rejected because it was not “innovative” — a reason that did not make sense. But we couldn’t afford to appeal, so we had to let our dot.com dream die. Ebay, didn’t, though. They filed several successful patents based on our failed attempt. Oh, to be a big dog with deep pockets.

Mom, Daughter, and Granddaughter

All of the these many activities have been woven around the busy lives of my three nearly grown sons (Alex, Ben, and Quinn) in the picturesque mountains of northwestern New Jersey in the United States. Finally, I’m the proud daughter of Davis Duty, Jr., a Fulbright Scholar at the London School of Economics and currently an esteemed Social Security attorney in Arkansas, and the late, much-missed Mary Ellis Duty, a licensed psychiatric social worker and a champion of women’s and children’s rights. I’m also the proud granddaughter of Clyde T. Ellis, a two-term US congressman (1939-1943), who began and was the first general manager (CEO) of the US National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, was author of A Giant Step (Random House, 1966), and was a prominent proponent of rural electrification throughout the world.

For a less exciting account of my life, see my Wikipedia page.

* Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Plus including Queer or Questioning, Intersex, Asexual