To find using unregulated breast milk reckless? **title edited by MNHQ at OP's request**

[celeryeater]

I think I might get a bit of stick for this but I find the whole process of sharing breast milk for babies a bit gross!
I don't know everything about 'safe' sharing from a proper milk bank but it's my understanding they screen the mothers for diseases and pasteurise the milk? That seems fair enough, and safe. Under what circumstances do you qualify for receiving that?
What I find bizarre is people who organise and receive donor milk for their babies over social media and just trust these strangers that they don't have any diseases or a drinking or drug problem. You wouldn't accept blood from an untested donor so what makes this any different?
I've been lucky enough to be able to breastfeed my DD but AIBU to ask in this situation what is so wrong with formula?

I planned to donate my milk, only I couldn't because I had low supply and got very little by expressing. I would recommend it to anyone who can as it does a world of good to hospitalised babies and their families. Just imagine being that mother and the feeling of impotence from not producing any/enough milk to save your little one.

Good luck butter
Looks like there will be somewhere near you then.

I donated breastmilk (officially). I didn't have a blood test

Juneau - breastmilk has the same basic composition no matter what mother it comes from. It is absolutely not true that breastmilk that comes from a woman other than the baby's mother will be no good - it's still milk created specifically for babies by a mother's body as opposed to a mixture of whey protein and vitamin powder, which is what formula is.

Honestly, do people actually share unscreened milk, or is this one of those things that's somewhere between an urban myth and the practice of a very few extremely eccentric people?

Someone on another thread recently was talking authoritatively about the (apparently) common practice of complete strangers meeting up with a bloke for a shag, instead of paying for sperm from a sperm bank. I've read an awful lot of donor parenting websites and I have never, ever come across someone who actually did that.

So I wonder if this is the same?

Thanks dylsmimi, I've almost come to terms with it now but I suppose my feelings were a bit amplified at the time due to very ill newborn. I really am grateful to all the women out there that do donate their breastmilk.

butter if you want to donate, it might be worth you contacting a milk bank in advance and discussing donating with them.

I used to be a donor for Chester milk bank (I'm in South Wales) and despite having stores of expressed milk, as my ds refused to take a bottle, I was only allowed to donate milk which had been pumped after I had been screened.

There are very strict rules about pumping and storage of the milk, plus they provide the bottles to freeze the milk in, and every bottle has to be labelled with date pumped and mothers initials.

You also have to agree to restrict caffeine and alcohol intake etc and there are limits about how long the milk can be refrigerated and frozen etc

So I think you would need to have been approved/screened and have agreed to follow the guidelines before they would accept milk from you.

I gave my child donated breastmilk from human milk 4 human babies. I EP'd (due to tongue tie and other various reasons) and could not produce enough BM, whilst formula exacerbated the child's reflux to the point she stopped gaining weight. I met with the woman several times before, so we got to know each other. I then paid for a print out of her medical history from her GP and for BBV testing, and flash heated any milk before using it, as recommended by WHO. I've also breastfed a friends baby frequently in an attempt to increase my supply.

Formula milk is amazing and we are lucky to live in a country where we have safe access to clean drinking water, meaning formula milk does not kill babies here. However some babies simply cannot tolerate any formula, as in the case of my child (who is completely fine with cows milk now they are older ironically). In these instances donated breastmilk is worth its weight in gold. Milk sharing is the norm in many countries around the world. I don't understand why there is such a large stigma about it in the UK?

Butterpuff I strongly suggest you freeze any expressed breastmilk and save it for your OH to do some night feeds with. You will be grateful for it!

re the OP: Screened donor milk is amazing, wonderful. I'll never forget the difference between the way my premature DD responded to BM versus formula. She threw up all the formula they gave her and was almost going to have to be cannulated to get an IV glucose drip in (hideous experience watching my 4lb baby fight the cannula ). Then the BM arrived and she had no more problems, digested it easily.

Unscreened donor milk is not icky but is very risky and no I wouldn't.

It's very common in America from what I've seen. Never seen it firsthand here.

They were all going on about it on that sanctimommy thing, how they travel for hundreds of miles to get it from a complete stranger.

minipie I think I'm assuming that baby will be as anti bottle as my dd was. No amount of trying ever convinced her to take a bottle. She went from breast to magic cup and that was it. The little terror!

I donated breastmilk when dd1 was little because I was producing loads of milk. It was suggested by the health wife and everything happened trough the hospital. I had blood test done and other tests and I had to use the hospital pump and pumped straight in to bags which was keep cold and the van came every day to pick up in the afternoon. If I didn't have any id txt the department van chauffeur so they didn't wast the trip. I hope that I have been able to help some babies. We could get vouchers for doing it but I declined, I didn't do it for that...

As everyone has said, properly screened donor milk is lifesaving

Any bodily fluids purchased from randoms online are suspect and gross

When wet nurses were commonplace, we didn't know about diseases being passed through breast milk. And if the mothers milk failed the alternative wasn't formula made with clean water like it is now. Flour and (unclean) water was often used i believe

is it really better to have a stranger's breast milk than formula?

Yes, absolutely, as long of course as it's been correctly screened, obviously.

Both my children had formula but I don't see how it's more 'icky' to give a baby another woman's breast milk than it is to give artificial breast milk (formula), or to drink cows milk (which I do, and I don't find it icky!)

Just to be clear, I can't see a problem with babies receiving donor milk that has come from someone who's been tested recently and pasteurised. I just think it's strange people trusting an interest stranger to share bodily fluids with their DC. There's a lady on my local breastfeeding Facebook group who is always posting asking for people to donate milk for her DS. He wasn't premature or sickly so doesn't qualify for milk bank milk. Every time I see her posts I just think give him formula! Also agree with PP about the donor women's partners. Or maybe I am just not very trusting...

You may wish to get the title of your thread changed. You should count yourself lucky you have never been in the situation where a paediatrician asks you to sign a waiver from your hospital bed just prior to an emergency c-section allowing your tiny baby to be fed donor milk fed by NG if she survives the birth. If you have been that person, you will probably know that seeing threads like this declaring it 'icky' just makes the experience even more upsetting.

Eeyore - you're right I didn't think about that. How do I go about getting it changed? (fairly new to MN)

Butter, my prem baby was fed my expressed milk through an ng tube until she was strong enough to take breast or bottle. Unfortunately she never got the hang of breastfeeding so I expressed for her for a few months.

Ahh - thanks. Sorry for the overly passionate response! You can imagine I speak from experience. I think you just report the thread and ask for the title to be changed.

What I find gross about donated milk from unregulated sources, is that no tests for diseases or infections are done, its like any other human fluid, blood, urine, semen, it can carry infection if not tested. I would not like to put my baby at risk.

What's your view on mothers donating milk amongst themselves via social media no money changing hands?

Dd1 had donor milk for the first 3 weeks as I was too poorly to feed her and then failed to lactate. It was organised through the hospital human milk bank and is something I'm grateful for every day. There's nothing icky about it - we drink cow's milk which is essentially the same thing - milk from a mammal designed for its offspring.

I wouldn't get it from a source I didn't trust though.

If there was a donated milk bank which you could access easily and they did the tests and screening, that would be wonderful.

What I find gross about donated milk from unregulated sources, is that no tests for diseases or infections are done, its like any other human fluid, blood, urine, semen, it can carry infection if not tested. I would not like to put my baby at risk.

Did you not read my comment then?