A GROWING number of women are signing up for training courses to become lactation therapists in Shenzhen, but it might be difficult for new mothers to distinguish qualified therapists from the unqualified ones as there aren’t unified standards for these trainings.

    Many household service companies, vocational training centers and even beauty salons are offering training courses for lactation therapists, who are trained to help new mothers lactate.

    A staffer at a lactation therapist training center in Bao’an District, identified as Qin, said that many women have learned lactation skills at the training center, and some could earn over 10,000 yuan (US$1,449) per month after one-year working as lactation therapists.

    Qin said a 15-session night course costs 3,000 yuan per person and an eight-day weekend course costs 3,580 yuan. She said many students took three courses at the same time, including trainings for caregivers of new mothers and infants and trainings to be lactation therapists, which costs 4,760 yuan in total.

    A middle-aged teacher at the center said she has been a lactation therapist for many years and her door-to-door service costs 380 to 1,200 yuan each time.

    Qin said that students get their licenses issued by chinatraining.com if they pass the theory and practice exams at the training center. According to her, the exams are supervised by officials from chinatraining.com via online cameras, and the certificates issued by the website are recognized by the government.

    According to previous media reports, the website is allegedly run by a private company instead of the ministry of human resources and social security.

    There are other kinds of certificates for lactation therapists. Some of the certificates are issued by China Care Nursing Professional Talent Management Association and others are said to be issued by the ministry of human resources and social security.

    An owner of a beauty salon, who said she has worked as a lactation therapist for seven years, also offers one-on-one trainings to students and helps them obtain certificates, which cost 6,800 yuan. She said that most customers were introduced to her by their friends, and they never asked to see her license. (Zhang Yang)