Amber Valentine

Baptist Health Lexington, Lexington, KY USA



Biography

Amber Valentine is a Speech-Language Pathologist who graduated from the University of Kentucky with her MS in Communication Disorders.  She is a Board Certified Specialist in Swallowing and Swallowing Disorders and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant.  She recently received her credentials to become a Certified Neonatal Therapist (CNT).  She worked for Baptist Health Systems, Inc for 8 years before moving to Florida where she worked for Wolfsons Children’s Hospital and Mayo Florida.  She is now back in Kentucky working for Baptist Health Lexington.  She has experience in adults and pediatrics with feeding and swallowing difficulties including:  bedside swallow evaluations, Modified Barium Swallow studies, FEES, and pediatric feeding evaluations including NICU.  She has experience with head and neck cancer patient including evaluation and treatment of swallowing difficulties, PMV use, and voice after total laryngectomy including TEP.  She has provided guest lectures for the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville on feeding and swallowing topics. She has presented at the hospital level, local, state, national, and international levels on pediatric feeding/swallowing and breastfeeding. 

 

Abstract

The Speech-Language Pathologist is often seen in settings as the “go-to” for infants with feeding difficulties, predominantly for bottle feeding or feeding aversions.  In today’s society, with breast feeding becoming more and more “the norm,” the SLP has become more involved in the area of feeding assessment with not only bottle fed infants but infants who are attempting breast feeding as well.  The SLP brings an interesting background to the area of breast feeding with a knowledge of the oral mechanism, infant respiratory system, and swallowing mechanisms.  In many NICU and pediatric facilities, the SLP is now providing pre-feeding readiness assessments on infants, and by doing these, allowing many infants to get in on the ground floor with breast feeding. These infants in the NICU and early pediatric setting can be provided with more opportunities to become successful breast feeders, especially those infants who were previously thought to be unable to complete this task.  As the literature shows, it is so critical to provide human breast milk as soon as possible to these fragile infants in NICU and other pediatric populations, by allowing them to have earlier opportunities at the breast, they will be more likely to become not only successful breast feeders, but more successful feeders for a lifetime.  This presentation will discuss the role of the SLP in lactation clinically, as well as how we can work together between disciplines to improve breastfeeding success.  

 

Supports the following categories:

  1.  Removing barriers to skilled lactation support
  2.  The value of breastfeeding for our global environment
  3.  Support for embodied caregiving and all caregivers
  4.  Supporting lactation and access to human milk for all
  5.  The value of breastfeeding and human milk for health