If you can't donate milk, but want to support milk banking...

[organiccarrotcake]

What would you be prepared to do?

Or if you are the parents of a pre-term baby that you'd want to benefit from donor milk (or has) would you be prepared to do anything to support milk banking generally (in which case, what?)

I'm not asking for anyone to commit to anything - it's all hypothetical!! Just doing research.

bornsicky increasing the number of milk banks, and the number of hospitals using milk from milk banks, is a key part of UKAMB's work, so supporting UKAMB is the most effective way to get more up and running :) As you say, lobbying MPs and PCTs is also really important.

crikey, everydrop means that not enough parents are offered it, not enough parents know to ask for it, and of those who do know, there's not enough who have access to it because there's not enough hospitals prescribing it. It was always the case that there weren't enough donors (and some hospitals do still have this problem). The main problem now is that there is in the most part (but not all) enough milk being donated for the current demand, and the next challenge is to get more paeds prescribing it and more hospitals using it. Basically, UKAMB and milk banks have moved forward from their problem of not having enough milk (which is great) and now need to push the fact that it's there so that more babies are saved.

Please, though, don't be put off donating from that message!!! Unlike blood donors, milk donors have a limited donating life so it's absolutely essential that more donors continue to come on board all the time. We simply can't slip backwards with milk donating.

But we are now in a fantastic position to be able to now push awareness of the fact that the DBM is available, and push awareness of its benefits to babies. To do this we are:

• Updating the UKAMB website so that there is more information for donors, parents, HCPs and milk banks, and fundraisers (many, if not all, of the ideas on this thread will be used - so THANK YOU!!!)
• Focusing on campaigning to get hospitals to use donor milk...

...as well as continuing the work that UKAMB does to ensure the safety and viability of milk banks, and the research into the benefits of donor milk.

And all this takes a LOT of cash and UKAMB has virtually none, which is why fundraising is so critical. Which is why I bash on about it so much .

• crikeybadgerCan you just clarify though- do you mean that women know about donated bm for their babies but aren't offered it or that they don't know that such a thing exists?

Many mothers don't know that donor breastmilk from milk banks is available and are not given accurate information about the extent of screening of donors and the testing and heat treatment of the milk to minimise any risks. However mainly I mean that up and down the country, women are delivering premature and sick babies and are often not offered the option of donor breastmilk if their baby needs supplementing. First and foremost all mothers whose babies can't feed at the breast should be shown (at the earliest opportunity) how to hand express their breastmilk and then be fully supported with ongoing advice and practical help to ensure they can initiate their lactation. However there are lots of circumstances in which premature and sick babies need supplementing and donor milk from one of the UK's milk banks should be an option. Access to donor breastmilk as clinically indicated is a marker of good practice in the NHS Neonatal Toolkit Markers of Good Practice (3.10). In the BLISS Baby Charter Standards: Standard 6.3 is: The unit has access to donor breast milk for those preterm babies who would benefit from it and where a baby does not have access to their own mother?s expressed milk.

Definitely always need more donors........

An awful lot of people don't know milkbanking exists. I only realised this having been in the local paper twice in relation to it and the amount of people who've said to me they didn't even know this could be done is surprisingly high.

Even in my neonatal unit expressing room (gotta love those rooms...ours was tiny and had 8 pumps on stands but 2 seats. And a freezer for ebm that kept conking out [seriously]- though I have spoken to my MSP and am currently writing to the maternity hospital about this) the mums I spoke to about it didn't know there's access to donor milk in other hospitals (not available in ours unfortunately).

So without more awareness raising, our local hospital and others like it can continue with the 'nobody has asked for it so nobody wants it' line when the reality is that parents of preterm babies don't don't ask for it because they don't actually know about it.

Forgot to come back and say thanks for the clarification.

I wonder if UKAMB has come across the Small Charites Coalition. They may be a useful contact.

I spoke to the person I knew who did a parachute jump for charity and it turns out it was a spontaneous group decision that was organised by themselves (they ended up splitting the proceeds between 2 local charities). They booked as a group for a particular date and everyone paid for their own jump and donated all sponsor monies (but some organised charity jumps require a minimum sponsorship amount, which covers the cost of it).

The one big logistical problem with parachute jumps though is that it's weather dependent so you may spend all day waiting to go up and the clouds might never clear/clear too late to get everyone up so you would have to go back another time.

However, if you have people who really want to do the jump and you book it early enough in the summer, then that wouldn't matter so much.

beveridge all good stuff there, thank you for taking the time to do that. Very good point about the weather. I think I'm going to give it a try, though.

threefeethighandrising are you still able to help with the website? I'm finally getting round now to getting that underway and really I need some graphic design help. Is that your thing? Would have time to do anything? :)

I went to our bf support group (NHS run) yesterday and one of the woman mentioned how she had a really good milk supply. The Infant Feeding specialist then suggested she donate it to a milk bank.

It turns out that there is a satellite bank at the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital and they will send a 'man on a bike' to collect (60 miles). I think they are going to pasteurise it too.

Oh that's good says I, so if I ever have a premature baby and it ends up in SCBU at our local hospital, I could request donated milk from there. But is seems the answer would be no in this hypothetical situation.

So presumably some trusts will just refuse to buy in donor milk for Mums?

Anyway, I'm going to e mail the nurse in charge and see what I can do to help publicise it.

organiccarrotcake- I couldn't see this bank listed on the UKAMB web site, should it be there?

Satellites are different to milk banks. But if your hospital has a satellite, you should have access to donor milk. Cripes, EVERYONE should and actually if you WERE in a position to need it, and you were refused, and Gods forbid something happened - I don't see why there's not a strong claim there.

I'll find out why satellites aren't on the map and get back to you.

Ah, ok, sorry maybe I'm getting confused with the terminology here.

It's a place where they collect milk but I don't think there is a link to our hospital.

I do agree though, that everyone should be able to get donated milk if they need it.

Funnily enough there is a good article about a mw who fought to get donated bm for a woman that had had breast cancer and needed donated bm for an interim period after her treatment had finished. Even though the baby was premature, he couldn't access dbm as he wasn't born at the 'right' trust. After a battle, the baby did get donated breastmilk and the mw was shortlisted for the RCM annual midwifery award for supporting bfing.

You just got your ABM magazine too then, eh

I get so excited when they come through the door [sad boob fanatic emoticon]

Thought it was a particularly good edition this time - especially the piece on support groups. I'm going to photocopy it and pass it around the Children's Centre and mws at our group.

Must rack by brain to come up with a good article and win one of those lovely books.