Joanne Rucker, RN BA CLS

Joanne is wonderful! As a first time soon to be mama, I am already feeling better prepared and less stressed after our first Prenatal Visit.
During our appointment at my home in San Francisco, Joanne and I talked about everything from what to expect with breastfeeding, to parenting a newborn, to nursery essentials, to my fears and questions. She even checked out the baby’s room to be sure we aren’t missing anything we need for baby’s homecoming.
She truly took a big load off my shoulders and helped me feel as ready as I will ever be for baby’s arrival in the next couple of weeks.
We have our next appointment when baby arrives — she is going to help us start breastfeeding correctly right from the start. I will update my review to share how the lactation coaching goes for us.
Highly recommend Joanne!!!

I can’t say recommend Joanne highly enough. I saw her often when my son was an infant — for lactation and «Baby 101» consults. She is an amazing resource — always supportive, taking as much time as needed to answer questions and offer advice — with enormous care and a wonderful sense of humor.

Joanne is amazing! She gave my husband and I incredible advice and support in our son’s first weeks of life. She gave us confidence as new parents when we were at our most vulnerable.
She is both professional and warm — she listened to our specific concerns and provided resources that helped us immensely. She was an absolute wealth of knowledge to us. She responded quickly and continued to check in with us. I am so thankful for Joanne!

I cannot say enough good things about Joanne! She is incredible! Shortly after giving birth I was having a really hard time breastfeeding as most new and first time moms do. I didn’t have much luck with the lactation consultant in the hospital so thought I’d give Joanne a try. I’m so glad I did! She made me feel so comfortable and helped me get the proper latch. She also helped me learn the best feeding positions so that it was painless for me, and most importantly so my baby could get good feedings. She also made me feel ok with the fact that I was having a hard time. She comforted me so much (I really needed this because the other lactation consultant certainly made me feel like a failure). I honestly don’t think I would have succeeded breastfeeding without her. I’m so thankful for Joanne!

I cannot say enough good things about Joanne. When I met Joanne, she was working with my pediatric group providing lactation consultation. As a new mom, I was extremely tired and really had no clue what I was doing. She was so warm, friendly and motherly to me. I was lucky and didn’t have many issues breastfeeding, but Joanne still took the time to talk to me about everything I was doing and helped me make small adjustments that really helped. Although her personality and expertise make her amazing, what really stands out to me is the support she provided to me as a new mother. I had a c-​section and had complications after my surgery. I was so consumed in caring for and feeding my new baby, that I was ignoring a serious issue I was having. When I came in to see Joanne, she assured me my child was fine and sent me to the emergency room with such care. She even followed up afterwards to see how I was doing!
Throughout my child’s first year of life, I called Joanne innumerable times for advice and input on just about everything — how to deal with her first cold, how to breastfeed when I was sick, for help sleep training, and many more things. Every time I called, Joanne called back, listened attentively (and remembered everything about my daughter even though she had many patients!) and provided non-​judgmental and very wise support. Joanne is now on her own as a consultant and I still call her for occasional advice! I highly recommend her to anyone who wants support with lactation or support in getting through all that parenthood has to offer!

Joanne Rucker is amazing. At the hospital after a c-​section, we saw a few lactation consultants, specialists, etc. One spent an hour and a half working on a latch — even though the baby was already latching! Another said my wife wasn’t engorged without looking or evaluating. Neither was an effective listener. As desperate new parents less than 24 hours home from the hospital, we ended up in Joanne’s office, utterly desperate for help navigating a surprisingly complex confluence of milk coming in, engorgement bordering mastitis, malnutrition and weight loss, and comfort problems.
Joanne is an excellent listener. She has a motherly way about her that puts you at ease and encourages openness, free of judgment. It was clear from the moment she began listening that she considered our problem to be her problem and fully intended to solve it. You will not be «a number» with Joanne. After actively listening, she asked a bunch of good questions that both helped clarify what we had told her about the situation, our concerns, and our goals. She then went back through everything we’d had told her and responded with her thoughts. She seems to be someone who processes information verbally, which we appreciated because it exposed her thought process and the relative conviction of various statements. Inevitably, you can only take so much instruction as «high priority» and everything else takes a back seat. Joanne really helped us identify the things that really needed to happen without getting bogged down with details that, perhaps while accurate and useful in one context, was not a high enough priority to deal with in our situation. Her extensive experience as a pediatric (and adult) nurse also was very helpful as we thought through how quickly to wean off of narcotic pain meds that pass through the milk to the baby and make her drowsy. Our initial consult with her lasted over an hour, past when her shift ended.
24 hours later all the issues we had raised were beginning to resolve. It was amazing. Yes, part of it was just timing and results probably aren’t typical. But we saw her as very desperate new parents, took her advice, and watched everything turn around almost instantly. What can I say. We revisited Joanne to fine-​tune our plan and while we didn’t totally lose it, we all got a little emotional after such a turnaround. It’s not just her job. It’s her passion.
Many claim to be lactation experts. Only one we have seen lived up to the title.