Akron Children’s and Wooster Community Hospital Women’s Pavilion staff celebrate a breastfeeding support award from the Ohio Lactation Consultant Association.
Akron Children’s collaborates with many hospitals, including Wooster Community Hospital. Our hospitalists – doctors who work inside a hospital and only care for inpatients – recently won awards for breastfeeding support provided to patients at the Wooster Community Hospital Women’s Pavilion.
Healthcare Professional Award
The Ohio Lactation Consultant Association (OLCA) recognized the Akron Children’s hospitalist group with the “Most Breastfeeding Supportive Healthcare Professionals” award at the 2025 Breastfest Conference. Representatives from Akron Children’s and Wooster Community Hospital attended the 33rd annual event, held March 14 in Columbus.
Amanda Sojda, MSN, RN, is a nurse and certified lactation consultant at Wooster Community Hospital. She nominated the Akron Children’s hospitalists for the OLCA award. “Working with the Akron Children’s hospitalists has been an amazing experience,” she said. “They often show they are breastfeeding friendly by taking time to address feeding concerns with families and ask about feeding plans shortly after an infant is born.”
Most Supportive Pediatric Physician Award
Upon reading Amanda’s nomination form, the OLCA board also awarded Akron Children’s Pediatric Hospitalist Dr. Tatiana Gurevich-Panigrahi, MD, with the “Most Breastfeeding Supportive Physician” in the pediatrics category.
Akron Children’s Hospitalist Dr. Tatiana Gurevich-Panigrahi, pictured with Dr. Hallie Baucher on the right, received recognition for breastfeeding support in the pediatrics category.
To provide extra help to breastfeeding moms, Dr. Gurevich-Panigrahi earned “International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC)” certification. The International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners awards this globally recognized certification, which is for health care professionals who specialize in breastfeeding and lactation services. “It felt very natural to obtain IBCLC certification since my primary focus is newborn care,” Dr. Gurevich-Panigrahi said. “I believe that providing good care has to involve good knowledge base on breastfeeding. My counseling skills improved, and I am happy to be able to share my knowledge with patients and colleagues.”
Breastfeeding medicine and milk bank programs
Akron Children’s launched a breastfeeding medicine program in 2024. Breastfeeding medicine is a specialized area of health care that focuses on supporting breastfeeding parents and their babies to make breastfeeding a positive and fulfilling experience.
The Akron Children’s Hospital Kay Jewelers Pavilion and Wooster Community Hospital are milk drop locations for the OhioHealth Mothers’ Milk Bank, accepting breast milk from approved donors that gets delivered to the milk bank in Columbus for processing. Wooster Community Hospital also has a breast milk dispensary, allowing local families with a prescription to pick up pasteurized breast milk for their infants.
Akron Children’s Hospital and Wooster Community Hospital are milk drop locations for the OhioHealth Mothers’ Milk Bank.
Data shows the positive impact the Akron Children’s and Wooster Community Hospital teams are having on breastfeeding. In 2023, 76% of Wooster Community Hospital’s newborns were exclusively breastfed – and 89% got some breast milk. In 2024 – for a total of 1,091 babies born – the rates increased to 80% for exclusive breast milk and 91% for some breast milk.
“The initiative for better access to donor milk brought so much improvement to breastfeeding rates,” Dr. Gurevich-Panigrahi said. “We have an exceptional group of physicians, nurses and lactation consultants who support breastfeeding from the time before birth until the baby is weaned off the breast. Wooster Community Hospital offers couples’ prenatal visits to the women’s pavilion, breastfeeding classes and ongoing support of the whole family once the baby is born.”
Amanda also praises the teamwork between the Akron and Wooster staff members. “The actions of the Akron Children’s hospitalist group have allowed the Wooster Community Hospital Women’s Pavilion to be known as a place of breastfeeding support,” she explained. “It’s truly a blessing to have a team that provides infants with the best feeding plan and start to life.”
