Welcome to the Medela University

This detailed eLearning course offers a step-by-step guide on setting up the Symphony® breast pump, including the use of breast milk collection sets. You’ll learn when to select Initiation and 2-Phase technology to effectively initiate, build, and maintain milk supply. This course is part of an educational package designed to enhance your knowledge and confidence in using the Symphony® breast pump. A separate Symphony In-service course for US and Canada is available. Read more

Breast milk is widely recognized as the optimal source of nutrition for infants. Emerging research highlights its significant role in the neurodevelopment of preterm infants, with benefits extending into adolescence. This webinar by Dr. Kate Tauber will delve into the advantages of breastmilk for optimal neurodevelopment, identifying specific components that contribute to these positive outcomes. Additionally, you will explore the gut-brain axis and how breastmilk influences the infant microbiome to support overall health and development.    Read more

Using equity as a lens in the quality improvement process is vitally important to ensure standardized processes and equitable outcomes for all neonates. Join Rose Horton MSM, RNC-OB, NEA-BC, FAAN, in this webinar for a conversation on nurses' roles in mitigating disparities in the NICU. Read more

Healthcare providers have the unique opportunity to support lifelong health by ensuring each infant gets their mother's own milk.   A large body of evidence suggests that feeding human milk, even just one time, confers benefits to the recipient infant.   This learning module on colostrum, looks in detail at the science behind colostrum, its components, its function in supporting extrauterine life and the clinical benefits it can bring.  Read more

We cordially invite you to join Dr. Jae kim, the fourth webinar in our five-part series "Bridging Human Milk Research to Increase Human Milk in the NICU."   The delivery of the best practices for human milk nutrition in the NICU is an ongoing challenging commitment. Nutrition has lots of variability in practice as there is less evidence to help guide practice than in other areas. Nevertheless, standardizing best practices is better care and we can learn from quality improvement science to accelerate our efforts to build in these best practices. This webinar will discuss the pragmatic quality improvement framework that can be used in your unit to incorporate the best practices in human milk delivery, nutrition and infant feeding to ensure the best outcomes for your babies. Presenter Dr. Jae Kim is Institute Co-Director of the Perinatal Institute, Division Director of Neonatology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. His special areas of clinical and research interests include neonatal nutrition, neonatal bowel injury, bedside ultrasound, family centered care and resuscitation. He is the co-founder of the San Diego Mothers’ Milk Bank and the innovative, nationally recognized multidisciplinary program to advance premature infant nutrition called SPIN (Supporting Premature Infant Nutrition). He is the co-author of the book, Best Medicine: Human Milk in the NICU. He is a past member of the AAP Committee on Nutrition.   This program has been approved for 1.0 contact hours; provider approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing, CEP 13692. Read more

Course description Emerging evidence indicates that achievement of secretory activation and coming to volume, events that occur during the first two weeks postpartum, are fundamental to continued lactation.  The biologic underpinnings of the transition from secretory differentiation to secretory activation and coming to volume are extraordinarily complex, and are poorly understood by many clinicians, especially with respect to integrating them into best practices.  Patterns of infant suckling and milk removal during this critical stage have been relatively well-studied and mirror the biology of the mammary gland.  However, there are often ideological barriers to adapting these patterns for breast pump dependent mothers with NICU infants.  This presentation summarizes the biology of secretory activation, effective and efficient milk removal, and achievement of coming to volume.  Also introduced for the first time are personalized point-of-care instruments designed to measure and mirror these biologic processes.    Dr. Paula Meier Paula Meier, PhD, RN, is a Professor of Pediatrics and Nursing at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Dr. Meier has worked as a practitioner, researcher, and educator in the area of human milk, lactation and breastfeeding for premature infants and their mothers since 1975. She spearheaded the multidisciplinary Rush University NICU Human Milk Research Team that has conducted numerous externally-funded translational research and demonstration projects focused on the removal of barriers to high-dose, long-exposure mothers' own milk feedings for NICU infants. Dr. Meier has published over 300 peer-reviewed manuscripts and parent educational materials and has mentored graduate students from a multitude of disciplines. Read more