donating milk for prem babies

[rosylizzie]

anyone done this? what do you all think?never thought of it b4 , boobfeeding no4 now but feel v priveledeged to have her after 2mcs and wondered about doing this

fastasleep has done it. there is a thread on here about donation.

Katzg also did this too. Think you have to stop at 6 months though.

here it is
\link{http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=1364&threadid=119569\milk bank}

I donated milk 8 months ago now when ds2 was 4 months old. I loved it as it felt such a special thing to be doing. It just felt that in some really small way I was helping someone with a poorly baby. Like you I felt so lucky to have my children, and this felt like a little way of putting something back.
I used to express 4-6ozs every morning - baby feeding from one side and me expressing from the other. It took a little juggling around and I had to concentrate on the feeding/expressing, rather than doing much with my 5 year old who would always leap around the room during the morning feed! The milk then went in my freezer and we got on with our day! I drove it over to the milk bank after enough had piled up. It was no trouble really, save for the few mins spent washing pump each day. You do have to stop at 6 months as your milk is not at optimum nutrition then. Let me know if you have any specific questions, but i'd def recommend it! You get even more of those happy hormones that come through bf!

like hulababy said i did this for 1 month (until DD was 6 months) managed to donate 2litres to the bank in huddersfield.

any questions fire away!

"boobfeeding" aaaggghhh!

What a lovely lovely thing to do. Would love to donate breastmilk to babies that really need it.

Am pregnant with my second baby at mo, may think of doing this when he/she is born.

katzg, I live in Barnsley so Huddersfield is my nearest bank too. did you deliver or did someone collect? did they supply a pump?

amber5 - they do have some NCT people who collect but they didn't come as far as Sheffield so i took my milk over in a cool bag, i also already had a pump so didn't even ask if they had one to borrow.

if you follow the link below it should take you to the milk bank website, i justed phoned the huddersfield one and spoke to a very nice nurse who sent me bottles to fill.

She was very thankful for ANY donation so even if you can only manage a few oz's then go for it, 1oz of milk can feed a premie for a day! thats what she told me

I contacted my local milk bank and they said that the supply met the demand at the moment and they didn't need me. They said they would call if they needed me, but it's only three weeks until DS is 6 months which is the cut off point.

I felt a bit rejected

mawbroom - that is really sad. I'm surprised they didn't take the milk and transport it on to another neonatal unit or milk bank. The bank I donated to at St Peter's Hospital in Chertsey told me that I could bring milk in anytime and if their freezer was full they'd phone round other banks and pass it on - she said, no matter what, it would be used somewhere in the UK as it's such precious stuff. Could you contact the next nearest bank, or maybe there's not enough time left?

whats wrong with boobfeeding soupdragon - have you anything useful to add to this discussion or advice for me? thats what we call it in our house - ive seen the word 'norks' used in these threads - do you go on those threads to to raise objections?
thanks to everyone else for the useful discussions. waiting for milk bank to phone me back - have had initial discussions with them