It was once said, “It takes a village to raise a family”, and in that same manner it takes a village to host a lecture with Dr. Jack Newman. It was true collaboration to host such a renowned expert in the field of lactation. Dr. Newman spoke to a room of 65 attendees, at El Paso Health’s office on the evening of June 18, 2019.

The lecture was well attended by a wide variety of lactation professionals all gathered in one place with the same agenda: to improve support for breastfeeding women and babies by learning from the dozens of brilliant video clips from Dr. Newman’s decades of practice.

Dr. Jack Newman is a Canadian-born pediatrician. He is a world famous author, lecturer and teacher. He spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of nurses, speech language pathologists, doulas, IBCLCs, CLCs, neonatologists, pediatricians, dentists, and dieticians, from El Paso, New Mexico and Ciudad Juárez, México.

As is typical for El Paso/Juárez hospitality, Dr. Jack Newman was presented with several gifts. He received a thank you plaque commemorating this event from Dr. Myriam Herrera and the BBC. He also received a basket of traditional Mexican candy donated by Dr. Karla del Bosque, from NaSer in Ciudad Juárez.  Dr. Prashant Joshi from El Paso Children’s Hospital also received a plaque and a basket of Mexican candy in recognition of the help he gave in facilitating Dr. Newman’s lecture.

The evening ended with a presentation to Dr. Newman of a beautiful painting by Patricia Beckmann, an artist well known in Mexico. The painting depicts a half woman/half Catrina breastfeeding two babies, (representing the U.S. and Mexico) with the Franklin Mountains in the background and the star on the mountain where her heart would be. The painting is entitled, “La Unión Sigue Adelante: Es Amor”. It is breathtakingly beautiful and a powerful statement.

Finally, the Binational Breastfeeding Coalition would like to enthusiastically thank all the partners who made this one-of-a-kind lecture possible: El Paso Health, Envision of UNM’s Department of Pediatrics, and Texas Tech University Health Science Center El Paso Department of Pediatrics.