MEET OUR SPEAKERS
DR MICHAL MANSOVSKY
I graduated from BGU, Israel, in 2009, and by 2013 specialized in family medicine. I have been practicing breastfeeding medicine since 2009, and received my Fellowship in BF Medicine in 2019. I was a member of the organizing committee of ABM meetings in Europe since 2017. Since 2018, I am a founding and active board member of IABM – the Israeli Association of Breastfeeding Medicine, and currently, I am secretary of the IABM board. I practice BF Medicine in the north district of Israel and teach breastfeeding to physicians and health care workers all over Israel. I am happy to be a founding member of EABM.
DR SARAH BRENNAN
Sarah Brennan, works as family doctor in (North West) Ireland, with a special interest in Breastfeeding Medicine and women’s healthcare. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine and board member of the European Association of Breastfeeding Medicine. She is on sabbatical from her role as a assistant professor with the University of Galway Medical School in Donegal. Most importantly is mother to 5 boys who taught her all about breastfeeding and the deep need to have full legislative inclusion of the Code to protect all parents, children and health care professionals from the manipulation market if commercial milk formula. She is Co-chair of the Baby Feeding Law Group Ireland(BFLGI). She also facilitates mindfulness programmes (Mindfulness Based stress reduction, MBSR and Mindfulness based Childbirth and Parenting, MBCP).
DR NADINE MANSON
Nadine Manson is the Medical Director of the Doctors’ Breastfeeding Clinic. She is a Fellow of the Canadian College of Family Practice and the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine. She teaches family medicine residents at McMaster University in Hamilton,Ontario, Canada. In her spare time she enjoys her four boys and three grandchildren’ company.
DR CARMELA BAEZA
Dr Carmela is a family medicine MD, bachelor´s degree in Public Health Education, and IBCLC since 2005. She is also a BFHI Evaluator and the co founder and past president of the Spanish Lactation Consultant Association (AECCLM). She works in a private Family Wellness Clinic, Raices, as person in charge of the lactation program, which includes two IBCLCs attending breastfeeding families and an extensive offer of breastfeeding training for health care professionals and breastfeeding peer counsellors. The team has trained over three thousand doctors, midwives and nurses. She is the author of a breastfeeding/parenting book, “Amar con los Brazos Abiertos” (To Love with Open Arms).
DR REET RAUKAS
I graduated from the University of Tartu as a paediatrician and for more than 30 years I have worked as a neonatologist. Since the mid-1990-ies my main field of interest has been infant and young children feeding, especially breastfeeding. I am a member of Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine since 2010. I have counseled breastfeeding parents and lectured breastfeeding to health care workers. I have been a member of working group to compile Estonian Nutrition Recommendations. I have written several books and articles about children’s health and feeding. I am a member of the Estonian Breastfeeding Promotion Committee.
DR ADRIANO CATTANEO
Adriano Cattaneo holds an MD degree from the University of Padua, Italy, and an MSc degree from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He spent most of his professional career in low income countries, including four years as medical officer with the WHO in Geneva. After returning to Italy, he worked for 20 years as Epidemiologist and coordinator of the Unit for Health Services Research and International Health at the Institute for Maternal and Child Health “IRCCS Burlo Garofolo”, Trieste, a WHO Collaborating Centre for Maternal and Child Health. He has been affiliated with IBFAN Italy since it was created. As project coordinator of two EU-funded projects, he played an important role in the development of the document “Protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding in Europe: a Blueprint for Action”.He retired in 2014.
DR AMY KEANE
I am a HIV and genitourinary specialist registrar. I have trained in the Department of Genitourinary medicine and Infectious diseases in the St James Dublin.I am currently a fellow at the Axess clinic in the Royal Liverpool Hospital. I am a member of WAVE, women against viruses in Europe, part of eacs, the European AIDS clinical society. I have a special interest in HIV and pregnancy including breastfeeding.
DR LARRY NOBLE
I am a neonatologist in New York City at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. I am the Education Chair of the Section on Breastfeeding of the American Academy of Pediatrics and an author of multiple AAP Policy Statements, including the 2022 statement on Breastfeeding and the Use of Human Milk. I serve as Chair of Translations for the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, authored the ABM Protocol on Transitioning the Preterm Infant Home, and am an Associate Editor for its Journal, Breastfeeding Medicine. I was an Associate Editor of Ruth Lawrence’s Breastfeeding Medicine textbook and the AAP/ACOG Breastfeeding Handbook for Physicians.
DR RAFAEL PÉREZ-ESCAMILLA
Rafael Pérez-Escamilla, PhD is a tenured professor of Public Health in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Director of the Office of Public Health Practice, the Global Health Concentration, and the Maternal Child Health Promotion program at Yale. He obtained his PhD in maternal child nutrition and completed a postdoc in early childhood development at the University of California at Davis. He was elected to the US National Academy of Medicine in 2019. He has served as a senior scientific advisor to UNICEF, The World Health Organization, FAO, The World Bank, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), as well as governments across world regions.
DR LAURA REALI
I am a primary care pediatrician in Rome, Italy. I teach primary care pediatrics in academic and tutoring courses for pediatric residents at Sacred Hearth University of Rome and breastfeeding issues. I’ve written several scientific papers and books on pediatric primary care themes, focusing on medical education and environmentally associated child disorders. Since January 2023, I have been serving as president of the European Confederation of Primary Care Pediatricians (ECPCP). I am also a member of the International Pediatric Association (IPA) Program Area on environmental Health & Climate Change, as well as president of ISDE’s Latium regional branch in Italy.
DR ELIEN ROUW
Elien Rouw is a Dutch physician, specialised on healthy infant care, who lives and works in Germany. She is President of the Accademy of Breastfeeding Medicine, Founding member and Past President of EABM and member of the German National Breastfeeding Committee. Through the German organisation DAIS she is regularly training health care workers in Breastfeeding Medicine.
PROF. ELINE TOMMELEIN
Prof. Eline Tommelein, a pharmacist, obtained her master’s degree in in 2011 and completed her PhD in 2016 at the University of Ghent. Specializing in medication use during breastfeeding, she became a certified lactation consultant in 2021. Prof. Tommelein currently holds a professor position at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Besides, she teaches in the postgraduate training for lactation consultants and advocates for increased research and funding for breastfeeding-related issues. Author of key handbooks on breastfeeding and nutrition, she is dedicated to advancing pharmaceutical care and education, ensuring support for both healthcare professionals and breastfeeding mothers.
DR DEENA ZIMMERMAN
Dr. Deena R. Zimmerman MD MPH IBCLC FABM has worked as a primary care pediatrician and lactation consultant for over thirty years. She received her BA from Yale University and MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She completed her pediatric residency, chief residency, and Masters in Public Health at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (now Rutgers University), where she also served on the faculty as Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics for four years. She is currently the Head of the Maternal Child and Adolescent Department of the Public Health Directorate of Israel’s Ministry of Health working to promote pediatric and maternal preventive health care on a national level including the promotion, support and protection of breastfeeding.
DR NIGEL ROLLINS
Dr Nigel Rollins trained as a paediatrician in Belfast. Between 1994-2008, he was Professor and head of the Centre for Maternal and Child Health at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), Durban, South Africa. From 2008-2024, he was a Scientist in the WHO Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing where his work focused on research and interventions to improve child survival, growth and development including breastfeeding. He is now Professor of Maternal and Child Health at the Queen’s University of Belfast focusing on improving the wellbeing of mothers and children through public health interventions.
DR MÓNICA PINA
I graduated from the University of Padova in 1997. I specialized in Internal Medicine, training in the Hospital Egas Moniz, Portugal. When I became a mother, I realized that I had too little knowledge of breastfeeding. I realized the importance of peer-to-peer support, and became a La Leche League leader. But being a doctor, I realized there was dire need of medical advice in breastfeeding and that made me concentrate on the medical point of view of lactation. I started training other health professionals in the Unicef breastfeeding counseling courses. I became an Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine member in 2010. I am the current EABM president.”
DR YVONNE LEFORT
Dr Yvonne LeFort has practiced Breastfeeding Medicine for over 25 years and is the medical director of a private Breastfeeding Clinic in Auckland New Zealand. She is a dual Fellow of RNZCGP and CCFP(Canada) a Fellow of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (ABM), an IBCLC and has completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Digital Health from Otago University. She completed two terms on the ABM Board of Directors in Nov 2024, and is a member of the Governance, the International Code Compliance and the Protocol Committees of the ABM. Currently she is a member of the Breastfeeding Medicine Network Australia & New Zealand, a professional advisor to LaLeche League New Zealand, a member of NZLCA and a founding co-chair of Breastfeeding Medicine Association of Aotearoa.
DR RIMA STRASSMAN
Rima Strassman, MD, NABBLM-C, FABM, is a pediatrician and breastfeeding medicine specialist. Dr. Strassman is co-chair of the ABM Fellowship Committee and Chair of the ABM Code Compliance Committee and has been a member of the ABM Board of Directors since 2019. Dr. Strassman was a founding member of the North American Board of Breastfeeding and Lactation Medicine and is also a member of Health Advocates for Sponsorship Free Feeding, a group formed by the WHO to encourage healthcare providers and their organizations to refuse formula company sponsorship. She is Medical Director of Lactation Services at St. Luke’s University Health Network in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
