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My Story

Hello! My name is Candice Ward, owner of Sweetest Nectar LLC. I’m a proud mother of six wonderful children and a supporter of breastfeeding families. All of my children benefited from breast milk and I have been a breastfeeding professional for the last ten years. My career started, the year 2009 in my local WIC department for Affinia Healthcare. In anticipation of working in my new breastfeeding peer counselor role, I completed the CLC (Certified Lactation Counselor) training before my hire date! At that time, I understood the importance of mother to mother support. Especially, for other women like me, who were rarely supported or encouraged to breastfeed.

Over time, I recognized there was a need to provide more than basic support. The issues surrounding many mothers required a more skilled and knowledgeable approach to address breastfeeding challenges. There was also a need to normalize breastfeeding within communities while educating healthcare professionals and employers on supportive practices for individual families. Naturally, my passion led me to become an IBCLC (International Board of Lactation Consultant). An IBCLC is a trained breastfeeding professional that specializes in assisting with basic or extreme breastfeeding issues. The term Lactation Consultant is exclusively reserved for those who have met the qualifications and passed the exam given by the International Board of Lactation Consultants Examiners (IBLCE).

I received training through Jamaa Birth Village to become a certified full spectrum doula. A doula is a non-medical companion or support person that assist throughout maternal care. A full spectrum doula will support families with the early stages of fertility to the later stages of the postpartum period. I specialize in the postpartum period by offering traditional African American practices that improve healing and recovery.