To breast feed a friends baby if she was busy?

[narkymum]

just read a piece about it in closer. There is a programe about it on 9th sept c4 10pm.

mumoftwinz at the Birmingham Breastfeeding Picnic was a HV who had been to a presentation by SMA about a study they had done to prove their prem milk was better than bank milk. They failed to prove it BM is always better for baby than formula. If we are going to get into age specific, it's also child specific, time specific environmental specific... But the milk doesn't change that much other than making preterm milk or colostrum.

The body does provide special premature milk, but to be honest I don't know any premature mother who had the time to be pumping extra milk to donate.

I'm surprised there is an age limit because I do know of mothers who have donated for a long time after their baby weaned.

2 of the girls i was on the ward with when our children were born donated and both of their children were prem, they both produced loads and because their children were being fed via a tube they donated their excess.

I was always a bit they they produced so much and i produced so little but they were great. Expressing is really shit.

I was lucky to get 10ml every four hours! Took till she was 14 days before I could give enough to feed her (thank goodness for shells!) and a couple more days till I could supply her feeds, then we were fully breastfeeding within a couple more days (her choice). Most women were the same. I knew one woman who had been expressing for her older daughter and she would double pump and have two bottles a side in 15 minutes!

tink.... that's over here, maybe in england there's not the limit?

it's a balls actually as i never get my act together to do it when my babies are small enough and then when i'm more organised i'm ineligable!

I don't know, I've heard a few people say the same, maybe it's changed. I agree with you that it makes it difficult because it's a time when you should still be exclusively breastfeeding and on demand. It's not the best time to be expressing for donation.

(I can't really express much anyway so I'm probably just jealous!)

I can't believe I'm half way already, over half way if baby lives up to expectations!

Looking at the UKAMB website it doesn't say anything about age, so you could be right.

It used to be that your baby had to be under 6mo when you started to donate but once you had started you could continue.

I can't remembr when I started but I stopped when DD was 8mo and we took a 2-month trip to the US.

if anyone ever bf my baby i think i would stop talking to them.... it is a very personal thing between mum and baby... I am not the kind of person that fights but i would kick their ass if they did that...

But i am very over protective of my dd, and did not let anyone kiss her too much untill she was around 6-7 months....

I'd definitely feed another baby, and if needed I'd be happy for someone to feed my DS. Whether anyone else would put up with his rather active feeding position is another matter.

in many cultures this is quite normal. in britain hundreds of years ago, wet nurses were all around. I can never have the pleasure of feeding like this but as my ex was not interested in our son and wasn't producing the milk anyway, I bottle fed him most of the time. I am quite an easily bored person, can't sit still for too long, but sitting there for ages while he drank from the bottle I was holding, looking down at him and him looking back was something so personal it was unbelievable. feeding yourself must be even more satisfying and rewarding? if you know the person well, and there is no way you can feed, they offer, you ask I see no real problem.

I wouldn't want anyone else BF'ing my baby

I believe Nappyaddict did this for a friends baby once.

Personally I couldn't/wouldn't I don't think and I wouldn't want anyone else to feed my babies their bm...But! I wouldn't want them to have formula either....hmmmm

as misi said, wet-nursing used to be fairly common in this country and not even all that long ago (and other countries of course) so I can't see it as a problem BUT I would want them to ask me first if it was ok!

I wouldn't have a problem feeding someone elses baby. I would prefer that than formula but I would be upset at someone else feeding my baby. That said, if I couldn't for whatever reason I would rathe they had someone else's human milk.

A friend of mine knew a group of sisters who all cross-fed their babies and I think that is rather a lovely idea and what a lovely relationship they must all have. About the only downside I can think of to only having brothers.

Starting to wish I had sisters - especially when they are as lovely as Misdee's

Don't have any feelings either way. If you want your baby to bf from someone else and there is someone there who is willing, what's the problem ? Surely it's just a personal thing.

When I had DS i produced enough milk to feed half of the RVI (Newcastle) maternity unit. Nobody approached me to donate some (which I would of been more than happy to do). Also, if another mother had approached me to feed her DC then (after giving it some thought) I would of done.

xxxx

I think I'd make time, really, as far as poss. I used to feed ds loading the washing machine, answering the door, cooking...

My friend has fed her baby my expressed breast milk.

There is an instinct to not give anything to your baby that you feel might harm. Therefore you probably wouldn't want a stranger to breastfeed your baby any more than you might want to give him cow's milk from a half empty carton that you found on a public bench in the park.

I bottle fed both my children and I would have been horrified if someone else had breast fed them, no disrespect to anyone but you never know what illness someone else might have and so I would not want them putting their bodyly fluid in to my child.

I was on the other hand quite happy to let my husband do a lot and my mother or mother in law do the odd bottle feed as they needed to bond with the babies too

I donated to a milk bank when DD2 was born as I had loads. Had regular bloods for HIV and Hep and the milk is pasteurised anyway before being given to the babies.

I also gave a friend some EBM when she wanted to go out as she couldn't really get anything when expressing. No big deal to either of us. She didn't ask me to feed him directly, but if she had I would have given it careful thought. Prob would only have been in a dire emergency though, in which case I'd have gladly done it.

I mean, she would probably only have ASKED in an emergency etc

In exceptional circumstances I would be fine with someone else feeding my baby, she won't take a bottle and so if I was unable to feed her for a period of time I would be grateful if someone else took on a feed. Recently I was with a friend and her baby and her dog was run over, I looked after her baby while she went to the vets, and considered feeding him as I didn't know if her bottles were sterile or how to use her seriliser, I thought the safest thing was to feed him myself, luckly just as I was weighing up the dilema she returned home

Depends on the situation entirely.

If the baby was hungry and nothing was available then yes.

If the mother was unable to feed, wanted to exclusively BF and was ill or unable ti feed for a period of time, then yes.

if i had seen this thread before having my baby i would have probably said it's fine for others but not for me, i would have felt uncomfortable with feeding another child or having someone feed my child. however after feeding my own child i would have no qalms atall about feeding someone elses child with their consent of course. i feel jealous when thinknig of someone else feeding my daughter though. i would much prefer her to have expressed milk from a bottle in the event that i could not give her my own.
i know it's redundant in todays society but didn't we all used to feed each others children hundreds of years ago, and would this have given our children even more immunity from illness? does anyone know if this is true?