Lactation Consultant (Registered Nurse): how many are there, and how many are in private practice?

National totals

Reading the sole-proprietor share

For this specialty, the 51.5% figure means that 2,215 of the active NPIs with this primary taxonomy have the sole-proprietor flag in NPPES. Treat that share as an indicator of how records are reported, not a direct count of private-practice lactation consultants: the field is self-reported and may not capture employment, ownership, affiliations, or changes over time.

By state

New NPI registrations by year

Counts reflect the year each NPI was first issued, among records still active today. The final year is partial: this data covers through 2026-01-11.

Data notes

• The sole-proprietor field is self-reported by the provider in NPPES and is an imperfect proxy for private practice.
• A sole-proprietor count shown as <11 is suppressed: the true value is below 11, which could include zero.
• The total covers active NPI records whose primary taxonomy is 163WL0100X, not every registered nurse who provides lactation services or every practicing clinician.
• An NPI first-enumeration year indicates when an NPI was issued, not when a clinician entered the specialty, began practicing, or remained active.
• Providers are counted once, by their primary taxonomy code only.

Source: CMS National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES) Data Dissemination file, FOIA-disclosable public data under CMS-6060-N. Aggregated by Hero EMR on 2026-08-03; deactivated NPIs excluded; specialty assigned from the primary taxonomy code (NUCC 25.1). Counts below 11 are suppressed. Individual providers are never published. All provider data pages.

Common questions