Author: Jolynn Dowling

About Jolynn Dowling

Interview with Jolynn Dowling

Jolynn Dowling (Jo) is an Associate Educator in the School of Nursing at Wichita State University and holds the Janice M. Riordan Distinguished Professorship in Maternal Child Health; which was established to honor her longtime friend and colleague. Her background includes over 30 years in the nursing profession and 20 years as a lactation consultant; with 17 years of clinical practice in a Level 3 NICU. Her curriculum and research focus relates to maternal/child health and breastfeeding; population health nursing; evidence-based practice; and interprofessional education. She strongly believes in civic engagement and has worked to establish community connections to reduce the impact of infant mortality and health disparities. Ms. Dowling currently serves as past-chair of the Wichita Area Breastfeeding Coalition, serves on the board of the Kansas Infant Death and SIDS (KIDS) Network, and has served on the board of the Kansas Breastfeeding Coalition.

Author Interest in Contributing to the Text

My motivation for contributing to this textbook stems from my work teaching population health to nursing students and the struggle they have to grasp concepts related to the systematic influence on the health of individuals and the community. It also stems from my frustration working with breastfeeding parents and their struggle to meet their personal breastfeeding goals because of barriers in the hospital, workplace and community where they live. I reviewed the concept of this textbook through the publisher and highly endorsed the need for its publication. I was thrilled to receive an invitation from Suzanne (Dr. Hetzel Campbell) to consider contributing as an author to the textbook. I was further gratified to learn of our shared interest in many areas, and humbled by the mentorship and friendship that has developed through this work. Chapter 2 is important because it makes the case for the promotion and support of breastfeeding to positively impact global economies, the health of the mother and infant, and health systems. It provides strategies to promote breastfeeding from the individual through systems and policy. Concepts presented in this chapter also help the reader by providing frameworks to enhance communication with the family to achieve their breastfeeding goals; as well as, establish community connections and reduce barriers to sustain breastfeeding duration. While the importance of breastfeeding to promote health has been addressed in other textbooks and literature; the beauty of this text is it addresses breastfeeding and lactation as a health promotion strategy, and provides the tools to positively impact systems to support breastfeeding parents into one publication.