Professional Consulting & Clinical Development

Thoughtful support for clinicians, practices, and healthcare teams navigating complex feeding care, professional growth, and practice development.

Melissa Cole, MS, IBCLC, PMH-C, offers individualized consultation for lactation professionals, feeding specialists, healthcare providers, and interdisciplinary practices. Whether you are thinking through a challenging clinical case, strengthening your documentation and workflow, developing a collaborative feeding program, or exploring integrative herbal options, Melissa helps turn complexity into clear, practical next steps.

Clinical and professional challenges rarely fit neatly into a checklist. You may have gathered plenty of information but still feel unsure about what matters most, what to prioritize, or how to communicate the plan clearly. Melissa brings decades of clinical, educational, and entrepreneurial experience to each consultation. Her approach is collaborative rather than prescriptive: helping you organize the information, identify the questions that still need to be answered, and develop recommendations that are clinically sound, realistic, and useful.

“Melissa’s experience, knowledge, and calm demeanor have been invaluable. She is highly professional and collaborative with both providers and patients.”— Pediatric physician

“She helped me build confidence and gave me a strong path forward, both clinically and within my private practice.” — IBCLC consulting client

Sometimes another thoughtful perspective changes everything.

BOOK A PROFESSIONAL CONSULTATION

Professional Herbal Consultation

Evidence-informed herbal guidance for professionals supporting perinatal and pediatric families.

Professionals may encounter clients who are already using herbs or who want to explore botanical support for lactation, postpartum wellness, mood, or infant digestive concerns. Melissa combines advanced training in therapeutic herbalism with extensive clinical lactation experience to help providers approach these conversations with greater confidence and care. After our virtual conversation, Melissa Cole will create a custom report for you to use or share with your own client.

$90 BOOK NOW

A professional herbal consultation may include:

Review of the clinical concern, health history, and medications
Individualized discussion of herbal options, benefits, limitations, and safety
Guidance on personalized formulation, preparation, and use of suggested herbs

Professional Consultation & Practice Development

Thoughtful support for complex cases, private practices, and interdisciplinary teams.

Melissa offers individualized consultation for lactation professionals, feeding specialists, healthcare providers, and clinical teams seeking greater clarity in their care, communication, or practice development. Consultation may focus on complex lactation and infant-feeding cases, tongue-tie and oral-function care, differential considerations, referral questions, family education, documentation, workflow, service design, or sustainable business growth.

Melissa also works with dental practices, medical clinics, lactation teams, and interdisciplinary organizations to strengthen feeding-care pathways, improve collaboration, and develop practical systems for assessment, referral, preparation, follow-up, and family support. Rather than offering generic answers or rigid protocols, she helps clinicians and teams sort through the available information, identify what matters most, and create clear, realistic next steps.

Areas of consultation may include:

Complex feeding, lactation, and oral-function cases
Infant tongue-tie assessment, procedural preparation, and aftercare
Differential diagnosis, referrals, and team communication
Documentation, workflows, and practice systems
Service development, professional growth, and staff education

PROFESSIONAL CONSULT OPTIONS: $250 New Client, $160 Follow Up, $90 Brief follow up

SHADOWING & INTERNSHIPS

Professional Shadowing Shadowing provides an opportunity to observe clinical care, assessment, communication, and care-plan development in a real-world practice setting. Shadowing is observational and does not include participation in patient care. Availability is limited and subject to patient consent and scheduling. Submit a Shadowing Inquiry

Internships Luna Lactation is not currently accepting new interns. Interested applicants may complete the inquiry form to be considered when future opportunities become available. Submit an Internship Inquiry

TESTIMONIALS

Diagnosis and treatment of tethered oral tissues is a glaring gap in pediatric education. Melissa’s experience, knowledge and calm demeanor have been invaluable to me as I work to fill that gap. She is highly professional and collaborative with both providers and patients, and you should jump at any chance you have to work with her.

Doug Lincoln, MD, MPH, Metropolitan Pediatrics
We spent two days of intense learning on 1. Assessment 2. Functional Release 3. Aftercare 4. Oral motor Therapy. Melissa Cole IBCLC, RLC came down from Portland, OR for in-office training. She provided the breastfeeding community in Eugene/Springfield with great support and knowledge. Eight providers attended the “Lunch and Learn”. Day 1, we evaluated and treated 6 infants…Day 2, we evaluated and treated 8 infants. AMAZING RESULTS!! She is worth her weight in GOLD!! Awesome learning opportunity to keep improving what we do, which is help Infants latch, transfer milk, and no doubt improve craniomandibular development! I highly recommend her for anyone wanting to improve their skill. I hope to bring her down again in Spring of 2018….
…Melissa Cole is passionate about helping mothers and babies achieve optimum breastfeeding. Sometimes that means coaching or altering positions to help making the transfer of milk more efficient. Other times it might mean referring for a lip and/or tongue tip release with follow up myofunctional retraining. After spending two days with her in my office my confidence has grown in both the evaluation of the ties as well assessment of a proper release. Melissa has my highest possible recommendation for those wanting to increase knowledge in breastfeeding physiology, lip and tongue tie evaluation and even releasing tethered tissues.

Ben A. Sutter, DMD, Eugene, Oregon
Working with Melissa is great! She's very informative and thorough. I feel much more comfortable working on infants after our training. Thanks Melissa!

Kelcey Parrot, DDS, Abbeville Dentistry, Lubbock, TX
Having Melissa impart her knowledge on tethered oral tissue, to my staff and healthcare professionals in our community, was invaluable. Her insight sparked interest and communication within our group, that will definitely help us all serve the needs of our growing families. We are very grateful to have met her and look forward to our ongoing relationship.

Bernadette Delumpa, DDS, Smilebrite Dentistry, Valpariso, IN
The educational event and consulting time were fantastic and helpful! Thank you so much for everything!!!

Shari Carroll, DDS, Shari Carroll Pediatric Dentistry, Redondo Beach, CA
Love working with Melissa. She is professional but approachable, knowledgeable, and communicates promptly to answer my questions. Would highly recommend!

S.T. – IBCLC (professional herbal consultation client)
Thank you! I edited my treatment note and took out all the questions we talked about, it was such a relief to chart today! I feel I am on the right track, this is amazing! The flow is so different.

IBCLC (business consulting client)
Expert advice to improve my business and skills! I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Melissa! During our time, we talked through clinical questions I had for my practice as an IBCLC as well as business items. She was prepared for our meeting and adequately answered my questions, helping to build my confidence and give me a strong path forward. I highly recommend her for other lactation professionals looking for guidance clinically or with business!

S.B. - IBCLC
OMG, you are a wealth of knowledge!! It's so incredibly helpful to get an infusion of your perspective. I am psyched to start implementing these fantastic ideas. And it's actually reassuring to realize there is so much more I can do. Thank you so much for sharing your experience and expertise with me!

Business consultation client, Jan 2022