Lynethia Geppert

Lynethia became interested in infant feeding and its impact on child development and emotional wellbeing following the birth of her first child.

Lynethia trained as an NCT Breastfeeding Counsellor through the University of Worcester and joined the Infant Feeding Team where she provides specialist infant feeding support to families before and after birth, and works with staff to implement the Baby Friendly Initiative standards, which include the standard ‘Support parents to have a close and loving relationship with their baby’. 

Lynethia has developed a particular focus on the impact of close and loving relationships on babies’ brain development. Through responsive parenting, babies receive a timely, appropriate and consistent response to their physical and emotional needs, and experience safe, reliant and secure relationships. These early positive experiences strengthen the neural pathways in the baby’s rapidly developing brain resulting in improved emotional resilience and ability to withstand adversity later in life. 

From her extensive work with parents and staff, Lynethia became aware of a lack of understanding of the importance of responsive parenting, and limited resources available to communicate these concepts in an accessible way. Her project aims to explore the foundations of parents’ and staff knowledge and develop supportive resources and training programmes to help inform and educate.