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Malaysian Breastfeeding Peer Counselor Association

Please note that we are unable to plan for further training sessions due to the pandemic Covid-19. We suggest that you follow our Facebook page for any updates on workshops and you can also fill up the Training Request Form (link below) so we can contact you when we have a training session scheduled. (Updated: 7/6/2022)

A very good day to all of you.

This is a piece of document for you to read and understand Malaysian Breastfeeding Peer Counselor Association (MBfPCA), our roles and functions in our society, as part of advocating society to support, protect and promote breastfeeding in Malaysia. For your information, we are not the training body who offer courses to certify persons as Breastfeeding/Lactation Counselor. It is being provided by other organizations.

To further clarify who we are and what we do, first of all, we would like you to know that we are an independent non-profit NGO providing trainings for those who are interested to become Breastfeeding Peer Counselor (Bf PC, or mostly addressed as ‘PC’) in Malaysia. Our training program has started since January 2010 until now. We train anybody who has interest to help mothers and families to breastfeed. Thus, there is no specific requirement to join our training as long as the person has interest as mentioned.

The term “breastfeeding peer counselor”, in our context as well as being understood by international societies refers to persons who give help hand in hand to their peers to breastfeed. In our Malaysian language, they are also called as “pembimbing ibu menyusu” by the mean of “pembimbing rakan sebaya ibu menyusu”. We train those breastfeeding peer counselors to equip them with essential basic counseling skills which applicable in breastfeeding support and the basic breastfeeding knowledge.

The term “lactation consultant”, in our context as being understood by international societies refers to IBCLC (International Board Certified Lactation Consultant). An IBCLC is a person who sit and passed the exam by IBLCE (you may further visit www.iblce.org for further info) and accredited to become a lactation consultant and required to renew their credentialling every 5 years. Our NGO does not provide any training to become a lactation consultant. However, we do provide support to our trained breastfeeding peer counselors who wish to enhance their credibility to become an IBCLC.

Training series in MBfPCA is run by Lactation Consultants who are IBCLC and credible medical doctors with specific interest in breastfeeding medicine. We have three levels of breastfeeding peer counselor training:

  1. MBfPCA Entrance Level for Breastfeeding Peer Counselor – 3 days duration. No requirement except to have interest to support breastfeeding in community. We have started this course since January 2010 and continue to organize this course periodically. For the time being, we already trained more than 500 breastfeeding peer counselors in Malaysia including Sabah and Sarawak. We are looking forward to train more in the future. By completing this course, you will be awarded a Certificate of Attendance of MBfPC Entrance Course. To register for the next available MBfPCA Entrance Level course, fill in the form here.
  2. MBfPCA Advanced Level for Breastfeeding Peer Counselor Certification – 3 days course followed by 6 to 9 months coursework/practical training with final 1 day evaluation session.
    Requirement to enter this course:
    (i) – Completed 3 days training of MBfPCA Entrance Level for Bf Peer Counselor, OR
    (ii) – Completed any training in lactation field (20 hours Lactation Management Course, at least) by other organization.
    This course is open only once yearly and the priority will be given to those who already attended our Entrance Level course.
    By completing this course, you will be awarded a Certificate of Completion of MBfPC Advanced Course, and you will carry “Certified Breastfeeding Peer Counselor of MBfPCA” that represents us, and bound to terms and conditions that uphold the responsibility to preserve reliability, accountability, relevancy to support breastfeeding community.
    A Certified Breastfeeding Peer Counselor of MBfPCA is never a professional counselor nor a professional healthcare provider, but a person who has been equipped optimally with skills and knowledge to support, protect and promote breastfeeding.
  3. MBfPCA Train The Trainer Course for Program Administrator
    This is a specific course to train those who are interested to become a trainer for our MBfPCA training series. It only opens for those who completed MBfPCA Entrance Level and certified as our breastfeeding peer counselor through MBfPCA Advanced Level. This offer will circulate internally among those who already completed both Entrance and Advanced MBfPCA courses only.

Other related matters:As for lactation specific clinical hours, we do provide supervision and guidance to our breastfeeding peer counselors only. Usually, those who need the 1000 hours of lactation counselling are the ones who are planning to sit for IBLCE exam to become lactation consultant. For mother support persons like our breastfeeding peer counselors, they need other experienced IBCLCs to certify and endorse their clinical lactation contact hours, despite guiding them on their journey to become a lactation consultant.

All updates and advertisement of our courses will be uploaded on our Facebook page from time to time. You may follow us on our FB page. We do have a long list of training requests and we would like to thank those who completed the waiting list form.

Question: HOW DOES MBfPCA CHOOSE THE PARTICIPANTS FOR THE TRAINING SESSION?

  1. First, we open the advertisement through our FB page, and member-specific FB group.
  2. After the training registration request deadline, we will go through the participants one by one to see whether they are already registered as our MBfPCA member or in the waiting list prior to the training advertisement. So, we would offer them the next registration step. We do not have a policy of “early booking” of training seat.
  3. We can only accommodate maximum of 25 pax per training session, and most of the time we limit to 20 pax only. So, if you would like to bring our training to your place or organization, you may want to meet the minimum number of 20 and maximum of 25 pax. You can always write to us to admin@malaysianbfpc.org.

We hope the information above help you to clarify on matters concerned.

Thank you.

Kind Regards: MBfPCA Team.