Breastfeeding Exclusive March 2017 – Alumni Spotlight: Ellen Chetwynd
Dr. Ellen Chetwynd is a post-doctoral researcher at North Carolina State University and a lactation consultant at the Women’s Birth and Wellness Center. This combination of clinical work and research has defined her academic path. Ellen entered the University of North Carolina Gilling School of Global Public Health with experience both deep and rich in providing healthcare and leadership in maternal and child health. Over the past seven years, she has augmented this skill set by immersing herself in the study of public health, with an emphasis on epidemiologic methods.
Her doctorate in Maternal and Child Health titled “Cumulative lactation and metabolic disease in African American women” contributes equity to the literature on lactation and chronic maternal metabolic disease as well as identifying potential methodologic biases in cohort analyses when assessing the long term benefits of breastfeeding. The first paper has been accepted in the American Journal of Epidemiology. 3
Her postdoctoral research has two branches of inquiry: 1) providing evidence for new models of lactation care, specifically the efficacy of breast massage in reducing antibiotic use for the treatment of mastitis and 2) framing the landscape of breastfeeding support in North Carolina by merging layers of existing data. This will identify enabling conditions facilitating grant-funded collaborative interventions addressing low resource settings using an organized and purposeful implementation of evidence-based strategies.
As she faces forward, she is building “Next Level Lactation LLC”, a group of advanced lactation consultants providing resources for colleagues interested in developing their lactation practice, writing a book on breastfeeding for the scientifically minded mother, and pursuing grants that will bring quality lactation services to low resource settings.
