Over 1,000 nurses at CHOP have taken the Breastfeeding Resource Nurse course and provide families with evidence-based lactation support and care. Since implementation of Dr. Spatz’s 10 step model at CHOP, the number of infants discharged from the NICU on human milk feeds has increased from about 30% to more than 86%.

As a clinician educator and a nurse researcher in lactation and director of the Lactation Program at CHOP, Dr. Spatz educates and consults in the breastfeeding care of families, including providing prenatal and post-delivery education for mothers with infants diagnosed with complex surgical and non-surgical anomalies. She also developed a DVD on skin-to-skin transfer of the ventilated infant and the motivating and empowering DVD –“The Power of Pumping” – both of which are used in hospitals around the world.

Dr. Spatz’s testimony informed the Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Support Breastfeeding (2011), which provides steps for a society-wide approach to supporting mothers and babies who are breastfeeding. She highlighted the critical role of nurses in lactation support and the critical need for human milk and breastfeeding for vulnerable infants (the 10 step model).