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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Original poster

Having watched the You tube link on other thread.. Question for you..

19 replies

JingleyJen · 22/03/2008 20:50

she mentioned milk banks used to be used more.

For those ladies who tried to establish breastfeeding but for what ever reason found it difficult / impossible to get started, would you have been happy to offer your baby banked breastmilk as a top up to buy you both time to get to grips with breastfeeding?

(not wetnursing!)

I wonder how many families would have been able to get to grips with it given time ( a couple of weeks) without the stress of worrying if baby is hungry. but also without toping up with formula and the issues that that can bring.

I hope you get what I mean.. obviously a hypothetical question.

OP posts:
Original poster
JingleyJen · 22/03/2008 20:59

bump

OP posts:
onepieceoflollipop · 22/03/2008 21:08

I would say no. I am not sure why, that is just my gut feeling. I feel that I have been very lucky in that I wanted to breastfeed and it worked out for me (after a shaky start with dd1).

However, conversely I would possibly consider donating milk - I have a friend who did this.

WriggleJiggle · 22/03/2008 21:11

From the 'other' side, would love to donate milk, but the milk bank website seems to imply you have to live extremely close to one of the hospitals shown. Do all hospitals have milk banks?

onepieceoflollipop · 22/03/2008 21:13

I have no idea about the location of milk banks. We live fairly near to Birmingham so I would imagine there is a milk bank at one of the hospitals there and iirc this is probably what my friend did. I may be wrong.

Is there a section on the milk bank website where you could e-mail them and ask?

Original poster
JingleyJen · 22/03/2008 21:24

I know they take milk at Addenbrookes in Cambridge, my midwife asked me if I would do it as I seemed to have a more than ample supply.

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onepieceoflollipop · 22/03/2008 21:26

Jen sorry I have caused your thread to go off on a bit of a tangent. However reading your last post perhaps this hasn't been entirely unhelpful.

ilovewashingnappies · 22/03/2008 21:27

Oh my gosh! I would have treated every drop a bank would have biven me like liquid gold. [though after taking an hour to get one ounce (and taking a picture of it) I wouldn't have exchanged it for any amount of gold]

We drink cows milk for crying out loud!!!! And yet squeamish about milk from our own species?!?!?!

That would ROCK!!!!!!

onepieceoflollipop · 22/03/2008 21:38

Ilovewashingnappies - I totally agree with what you say. BUT I have to be honest, I know my first post was irrational, yes we drink milk from other animals (not even cows) and all kinds of other animal products, BUT there is this strange aversion(for some of us) to human milk. Sorry longwinded post.

Original poster
JingleyJen · 22/03/2008 21:50

I know that if I had had formula in the house in the first 10 days of DS1's life we would have switched.. but thankfully DH and others refused to go and buy any. Theu just kept on saying that it didn't matter how much he was getting as long as he wasn't dehydrated, which he wasn't, If we had had the option of taking the pressure off and giving him a little breastmilk from someone else it would have allowed me to relax enough..
Day 10 all alone, no pressure just me and him, it worked.
BF for 10 months in the end. (would have been longer if I had heard of breastfeeding strikes then)

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terramum · 22/03/2008 23:18

I would give anything to have been offered donated milk to give to DS instead of the formula he was supplemented with. I guess in the grand scheme of things the odd top up for the first week of his life might not have made much difference...but the doubt over how much damage it has caused/may cause in the future will be with me for a very long time

BabiesEverywhere · 23/03/2008 13:00

I was seperated from my baby at 4 months due to being admitted to hospital, I struggled to pump enough milk and managed it by the skin of my teeth.

If I had run out of my milk, I would of prefered my baby to have the third best option of breastmilk from another mother, rather than the fourth option of formula and the risks it carries.

jes74 · 23/03/2008 13:21

WriggleJiggle most milk banks are desperate for milk. I am in Derby and they come out from Birmigham to collect mine and will even go further afield, it just means i have more breast milk in my freezer than anything else as tend to collect monthly - they even came here to do my bloods and send bottles through the post. there are only about 25 milk banks serving the country so most will bend over backwards to get donations. Phone your closest milk bank and ask, thats what i did.

when my dd was in scbu i would of loved to have given her donated milk instead they would give her ff if i wasn't there at her allocated feeding slots which they would then change without telling me, so i would arrive to be told we have just fed her and if i didn't have enough milk in the fridge and considering they wanted her to have 100ml feeds every 3hrs at 4 days old i could not express that amount.

Once home se had ebm top ups until ebf from 2 months

pooka · 23/03/2008 13:29

I would have donated and would have been happy for adequately screened milk to be given to my children had it been necessary.
I think it is a shame that human milk is see almost as if it's an unpleasant secretion whereas cow's milk, well that's different.

ib · 23/03/2008 13:33

I would have loved to have ebm to give ds in the early days when I had to top up. Would have been prepared to go to quite extreme lengths to procure some too.

Poohbah · 23/03/2008 13:46

Initially I had to use formula to top up with my baby. I would have preferred milk from a Milk bank. I'd never heard of a modern milkbank.

When my mum gave birth in a small hospital in the 60's the midwives asked her to express milk for another lady's baby as that lady did not have enough milk. She happily did this.

jes74 · 23/03/2008 14:23

i should not bfeed and type at same time Birmigham = Birmingham & se = she

Caz10 · 23/03/2008 16:16

another one here who would have loved ebm to give as top ups, seeimg as i can get naff all when i express and we were pushed onto formula top ups.

this is a question rather than an objection - does it matter that the milk is not from that baby's own mother? is it in anyway "personalised" in terms of what it contains? just thinking out loud!

Nettee · 23/03/2008 16:55

Caz - the mother has antibodies to the "bugs" in her own environment which the baby is going to be exposed to. Also pasturising the milk I think denatures some of the antibodies

to the op - yes I would ptefer this but this would have the same detrimental effect on my supply as formula top ups

Original poster
JingleyJen · 23/03/2008 21:19

nettee,
I wonder though that because breastmilk is not so bulky (technical term obviously ) that when the mum does manage to get to grips with things that the baby isn't expecting a full sunday roast when actually baby is getting chicken soup. if you know what I mean?

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