Anyone with experience of donating their breastmilk? *title edited by MNHQ at OP's request*

[flossiegrippiter]

We're switching DS to specialist milk due to reflux but I've always had an oversupply so thought I could carry on pumping and donate it. A quick google has brought up some companies but no local hospital banks or anything (south London).
I've sent a few enquiries and waiting to hear back but would love to hear any first hand experience.

Years ago I donated to a local hospital (think it was Kings) was all very simple from what I remember. They provided the bags and collected he milk. Had to have a blood test and meet with the breast feeding consultant (who was absolutely amazing)

I donated milk to the milk bank in the NW. I had to go through a remote screening process and once they were happy, they sent me a box with empty, sterilised bottles, instructions on how to label and store the milk and a thermometer for my freezer to make sure the milk was stored at the correct temperature. Every so often, the milk bank would get in touch to say someone would be collecting in the local area and we would pack all the bottles into a special storage bag.

It felt very rewarding and they kept in touch to let me know how the milk was being used.

2 years ago queen Charlotte's in Hammersmith were taking it in batches of 3 (they will send courier if you need I think).

Found the details on la leche league.

Has the new milk helped? The only thing that stopped D's reflux was omeprazole

I've found a milk bank at St. George's in tooting which is close to me so will get in touch, not sure how DH will feel about the freezer space being used up on breast milk! I'll have to ask how often they collect it.
Yes @EnjoyingTheSilence we've only switched to cow&gate anti reflux but it's like we have a different baby, a lot more smiles and the constant back arching and screaming for hours on end has stopped completely! It was silent reflux, but wish I'd switched weeks ago now!

Sorry meant to reply to @JanewaysBun

I'm sorry, nothing serious to add but I love your typo/autocorrect in the thread title

My beast doesnt like to share so he keeps all the milk for himself 😂

I donated mine via this organisation
www.ukamb.org/

A specialist nurse came out to take a blood sample from me for screening beforehand. All donated milk must have been expressed when the baby was under 6 months old.

EDIT 😜

London seems to have a few milk banks,
Kings College Hospital,
Queen Charlotte's,
St. George's,
Guys.

My nearest milk bank was Birmingham which is 30 miles from me but they send out courier to collect.

Oh no BEASTmilk!

Oh I did cackle at the title

I donated - 27 years ago! I had forgotten until I read this thread. Little plastic bags of frozen milk that I popped up to the hospital in a freezer box.

my frien donated through "human milk for humnan babies.". I think their are quite strict rules regarding it though. I would hae used it as well if it was available when mine were in scbu. I expressed but sometimes they had to have formula.

I enquired about it when my youngest was discharged from hospital. I was producing far more milk than she could drink (she was discharged at two weeks old and I left with nearly 2L of frozen breast milk!)

But I was told it wasn't really of any value or worth the effort.

Apparently, it had to he sterilised at such a high temperature (UHT) that it destroyed any of the benefits.

I was thoroughly discouraged from doing it by the hospital. I'm curious to know if anyone was told the same or whether it would actually have been worth doing.

@OldChinaJug
That sounds like nonsense. Breast milk is incredibly valuable, I'm sure I was told it was £35 per 100 ml, that was over 14 years ago. Every drop is so precious. The hospitals with SCBUs don't process milk donations anymore.
I know my sister was able to drop it in to the local hospital in the mid 1980s but now there are designated centres that screen mothers beforehand. My nearest was Birmingham.

I looked into it but as others have said, there are such strict rules about who can donate and the age of the milk that I just kept all of mine and fed it to my child in the end. It's a shame as I would have liked to donate given how much supply I had, but as a first time mum this is only the sort of thing you think about at the 4/5 month mark once you know everything is going well and you're out of the newborn fog. I did contact St George's when my baby was about 4.5 months and they said thanks but no thanks as by the time I'd got sorted there would only be a few weeks of "donation time" left. Next time around I'm hopefully going to be a lot more organised and will get it done quicker.

I thought about it but I didn't like the idea of it really

Yes i did with all at least two of my three children

As others have said little pouches in the freezer

I had masses, they sent someone on a motorcycle and he looked in the freezer and said I can’t take all that 😀 that was child one though, didn’t have so much for child three

It was about 17 years since i last did it

This is 24 years ago, but I've experienced this from both sides: dd was given donated breastmilk as a slightly prem newborn and later on I donated myself. I remember it as a very positive experience.

In those days I think the milk was collected once a week or once a fortnight, can't remember which. Didn't experience the tests as particularly off-putting, yes they checked what medication I was on and did a blood test and checked up on general medical history.

Do it! I had to use donated breast milk for the first few days and I was extremely grateful for it!

Lovely to hear positive experiences I'm definitely going to donate just waiting to hear back from the milk bank and hopefully they'll answer all the logistical side of things

I donated about 1500oz through human milk for human babies.

I couriered one lot, the other two were collected from my house. My favourite one, mum and baby arrived on their way home from holiday. Baby was inconsolable and hungry and they’d run out of milk. Luckily there was enough pumped in the fridge as I exclusively expressed for my eldest. Mum had a cuppa, baby had a bottle and their onward journey was much less stressful!

When I donated with first DD, some spare milk was going to help an adult with severe malabsorption and immunological problems at a specialist department in another hospital.
I was very happy to be able to help.
A good expressing routine along with frequent breastfeeding was the key to building up a big milk supply.
I was feeding and/or expressing every ninety minutes around the clock for 17 months!
DD slept with me and fed on demand.
For DD2 I split my milk equally between her and the milk bank.
I was an “expert expressor” by then and was able express for the milk bank immediately after she was born and donate a few bottles of “first milk” to the milk bank when she was a few days old.
My friend had twins when DD2 was 6 months old and they had issues feeding and poor weight gain, so I expressed for them also.
Their Dad would pick their milk up daily and the milk bank would pick up twice a month.
However feeding 3 babies and donating did mean, I could only leave the house very briefly unless I took my baby with me, I avoided spicy foods and alcohol and I couldn’t wear anything tight as my boobs were liable to inflate from normal to bouncy castle in about 3 hours.
I would never have stuck with breast feeding at all in the very beginning if I did not use a breast pump.
DD1 was exclusively breastfed and refused all bottles, so she never touched the expressed milk, but the pump gave me enormous confidence. Using the pump meant I could see how much milk I was producing, and I could increase the quantity as much as I liked.
It removed the 2 big concerns, am I making enough milk to feed her and can I keep making more?
I used to work on a dairy farm as a student, in the milking parlour and the milking machines had a particular pulsating rhythm, the cups squeeze and relax in a repetitive pattern.
Oddly that came back to me when expressing and I operated my hand held pump to that beat.
Even now I find myself randomly doing other things to the same beat.!
So all in all I finished 3 continuous years of breastfeeding with DD boobs and a great sense of rhythm!!