Thinking of donating milk - any evidence of benefit to recipients?

[Leapoffaith]

Didn't realise that people were desperate for donor milk until I heard that wretched story about breast milk ice cream on Vanessa.

Anyway, it got me thinking, DS is 4 months now and I've got enough head space and enough milk to do it and have done a bit of research.

But... as far as I can make out, the benefit of breast milk over formula, especially after it's pasteurised, is marginal at best.

The main benefit that I can find seems to be psychological, to the parents of the recipient baby. I think this alone is probably enough to persuade me do it, but I'd be really interested to know whether anyone on here has any links showing a health benefit to the baby.

I'm aware that I might be being a bit thick and missing something here - I assume there must be something I haven't found, otherwise people wouldn't volunteer so much time to organise milk banks.

Thanks in advance.

Don't be lazy.
You can google papers that say a variety of things then make up your own mind.

I have googled it and not found anything convincing, I know there are people on here who are pretty knowledgable about feeding, which is why I asked.

I don't think that's unreasonable, though obviously you disagree!

I wondered if the reason that there doesn't seem to be much evidence to support the benefits of milk banks could be that nobody stands to make pots of cash from it, so there isn't funding for research.

Just seems like a load of work for everyone involved if there isn't a proven benefit.

Premature who are given formula instead of donated milk are at a high risk of contracting necrotizing enterocolitis. If they get it, it is nearly always fatal.

The fats in breastmilk promote brain development and the iron in it is significantly more bioavailable than that in formula.

Babies who are given donated milk in NICU go home measurably earlier.

These are only 4 reasons that I can rattle off the top of my head.

Good for you for thinking about this leapoffaith.

There's a thread here that was bumped recently. It's talking about a campaign to get more donors and more milk banks.

On pg 2 tabouleh has posted some links that you may find useful.

Thanks foxytocin & crikeybadger. I'd previously seen that it reduces NEC but hadn't found figures, or realised how serious NEC is.

Crikey's link links to a UNICEF article and this bit seals it for me:

The ongoing high incidence of NEC and related mortality and severity of morbidity among survivors make this finding important. The recent eleventh annual report of the British Paediatric Surveillance Unit cited an incidence of 2.1/1000 neonatal unit admissions, 65% of whom weighed under 1500 g at birth. Overall mortality was 22% but it was significantly lower in those fed human milk compared with those fed on formula (5% v 26%, p