Donating milk- how long does your trust keep accepting it?

[duchesse]

Mine goes to a dairy for pasteurisation at Southampton hospital and is then shared out again to NNU throughout the south west. My hospital tells me that they don't accept it for prem babies once your own baby is past 6 months.

According to the nurse running the milk bank in Exeter, this is because your milk changes once your baby reaches 6 months. This sounds dubious to me. How would your body know that your baby is 6 months old and switch to lower grade milk? Or do your iron stores get used up in 6 months? In which case I should be fine because I'm still taking vitamins and Spatone.

I've been told by other MNetters donating milk that their trust is happy to take any milk donated, regardless of the age of the donor's baby. It seems odd therefore that the south west milk bank won't... Any thoughts?

I'm confused because most of the info I can find online suggests that you have to startdonating in the first six months, but makes no mention of stopping at six months.

my local hospital stops taking it at 6 months - which was unfortunate given that it took them 4.5 months to send me everything that I needed to get started

Hi, how do you get started? It's something I've always considered, as dd3 is the last and 3 months maybe I should look into it soon.

Sella, this is a good place to start.

Very puzzling. Just had a phone call from the woman who runs the milk bank in Southampton to say that it's fine to keep donating beyond 6 months as long as you start before 6 months. Which clearly has not filtered down to the nurse operating it in Exeter. I shall drop her an email because they must be turning down a lot of milk from willing donors at the moment. muddle- can you find out the details of the contact person for your central milk bank and ask them if it's OK to carry on?

duchesse, great link thanks have emailed them!

I donate in Oxford and there is no age limit

duchesse I stopped donating to Exeter for the same reason - the lady running it said the rules had changed and could not accept it after baby was older than 6 mo - this was 6 mo ago.

I really wanted to donate, but when I looked into it a while ago there doesn't appear to be a local bank Is it worth calling local neonatal units individually and asking, do you think?

For those that know do you know what herbal medication is accepted when donating. I'm currently on Fenugreek but have been taking it for a while and was thinking of stopping at the end of this bottle anyway - just in case I can donate down the line...

Sella, I recommend that you ring your nearest coordinator (their details are on the website) and ask about the fenugreek. I think that because the babies the milk is going to are so small and so sick they like you not to be taking anything out of the ordinary- even ordinary supplements in extraordinary doses (eg mega doses of vit C), but I would check with them if it's OK. You have at least a couple of weeks between approaching them and having all the checks done (you'll need to have a blood test to screen for various diseases and fill in a lifestyle questionnaire (mostly about coffee and alcohol)) so you have some time to finish the bottle! That said, once accepted they will take your old stores of frozen milk as well, so it is best to check that the fenugreek is OK. I had to check that the low dose of thyroxine I'm taking was all right.

thanks, have sent initial email, still not sure if i am close enough, nearest bank about 60 miles away? do you think its worth starting to try and express anyway, i've no idea how much i will get off dd still feeds quite a lot!

Mine won't take it after baby is 6 mo. I donated when baby was 6mo but milk was from when she was @ 4mo. I wanted to donate more but they wouldn't take it.