09/10/2026
Dear Great Lakes Breastfeeding Webinars community,
We have some difficult news to share.
After the release of the next Great Lakes Breastfeeding Webinar, “Ni**le Issues in Lactation: Assessment, Prevention, and Practical Solutions” on September 15, 2026, we will be pausing new Great Lakes Breastfeeding Webinar production. We will no longer be recording and releasing new webinars after the September 2026 webinar.
This is a funding decision. It is not a decision about whether this work is needed.
For more than a decade, the Great Lakes Breastfeeding Webinars have brought evidence-based continuing education to healthcare professionals, public health practitioners, community breastfeeding supporters, students, and others working to support families.
And this community has grown far beyond what we ever imagined.
In 2025 alone, 8,874 people participated in the webinars, generating 34,465 enrollments and 28,685 continuing education certificates. Participants joined us from all 50 states and more than 20 countries. 82% of our students were returning participants.
Those numbers tell part of the story. The rest is in the people who showed up month after month, brought what they learned back to their communities, asked thoughtful questions, shared resources with colleagues, and helped make this a place where we could all keep learning together.
The webinars that have already been released are not going away. They will remain available for their existing 12-month access periods, including continuing education and participant support. We will continue providing the associated reporting and support for the published webinars. To access and register for all available webinars please visit mibreastfeeding.org/webinars.
And we are not walking away from the future of this work.
We have developed a new Workforce Webinar Partnership model designed to create a sustainable way to continue producing webinars and providing workforce access. We are actively working to build the partnerships and investment needed to make that possible. We don't know exactly how long that work will take, but we are committed to do everything we can to keep publishing new education for our community.
Mostly, though, we want to say thank you.
Thank you to the presenters who have shared their knowledge and expertise with us. Thank you to our education consultants and webinar team, and to our partners at YOLO Breastfeeding. Thank you to the organizations and funders who have invested in this work over the past 10 years.
And thank you.
Thank you for registering. For attending. For coming back. For asking questions. For completing evaluations. For sharing webinars with colleagues. For telling us when something you learned here made a difference in your work.
You have made this more than a webinar series. You made it a community.
We are incredibly proud of what we have built together, and deeply grateful that you have been a part of it.
We are heartbroken that funding circumstances have brought us to this point. But we are also hopeful about what might come next, because we know what this community is capable of building together.
Thank you for letting us learn alongside you.
We hope this isn't goodbye. We hope it's a pause in a part of the story of a community that still has so much to learn and share together.
With deep gratitude,
The Great Lakes Breastfeeding Webinars Team
Michigan Breastfeeding Network & YOLO Breastfeeding
