i tried to be a breastmilk donor

[ruddynorah]

i looked it all up online after watching 'one born every minute' and all the premature babies. remember the thread?

so i checked the criteria, all fine. found my local milk bank, only 5 miles up the road which is pretty good as there aren't many about. emailed the contact person.

she emails me back oh lovely thank you for your interest 'i will ask the NCT ladies if they can collect your donations, and we'll need to do blood tests.'

ok says i, and i add that i could actually deliver the stuff myself, then i wait...and wait....and wait.....

2 months on...are they not urgently needing donors? more hassle than it's worth? easier to buy in formula?

Those who have not been followed up on their offers,please complain,only then will it be better for volunteers who follow you.
I wanted to donate but am ineligible (blood transfusion) DD1 benefited from BM donation when born, she was not premature but jaundiced & giving donated milk helped her whilst my milk came in.
I would definitely support a campaign to make the process easier.

well you'll never guess what's happened..

post man came to the door with a parcel. through the wrapper i could see it was a box of 'cow and gate sterilised water, ready to feed.' i'm flummoxed. open the package, the box is taped shut. inside i find...

some leaflets about milk donation
a form for personal info
a dozen or so little plastic bottles
a fridge magnet of a woman breast feeding (which is actually very nice!)
a syringe (???!!)
two vials

and a note

'thank you ruddynorah for offering to be a milk donor. please return the form enclosed and your bloods to the above address.'

is this what normally happens??! ds is 6 months old on friday. so i guess i can actually start donating..by the skin of my/his teeth! the leaflets say i can start collecting my milk now while i wait for blood results.

the question is though..why the syringe? i am surely not expected to collect my own blood! have i to ring the nurse at my gp surgery and ask her to do it do you suppose? how very odd!

obviously i'm going to give them a ring but dear god..i'm amazed

apparently the scbu at the hospital will do the sample, i just have to take the syringe and the vials along..

I too found it very hard to get them to take my milk, even when I said I'd drop it off myself. I did in the end (apparently for three weeks most of the babies in the SCBU lived on my milk )

Took me seven weeks of negotiation before they'd take it.

Was. Not. Impressed.

Had I not been producing so much I could have filled the bath with it, I would have given up fairly early on in the process.

In 2006 I donated milk to the Birningham milk bank, I received the bottles through the post and someone came to my home to collect the milk and took bloods for the screening. Maybe some areas are not short of donors but you'd think they would collect as much as pposs to distibute throughout the u.k

I donate to the milk bank at St Peter's Hospital, Chertsey - they were very quick to respond to my offer and any further questions, and always seem grateful for the donations.

I have just phoned my local milk bank in Southampton and they collect the milk from Bournemouth, they are sending me a pack with bottles and stuff in.......

feel like it's my good deed for the day done, I could feed an entire army with my supply, it gushes out of me

One way of improving matters would be to help UKAMB (the UK Association for Milk Banking) raise funds to create more milk banks, and to lobby for government funding to create a central bank, as for blood. There's lots of good info on the site too.

There's a lovely song written specially for UKAMB called 'Every Drop Counts', which you can download in return for a small donation (of money!). Top-up donations can be Gift Aided. www.ukamb.org/

Alison Blenkinsop, former midwife and lactation consultant

I know this an old post but I have just contacted Birmingham women's by email, it is a Saturday.

I am looking forward to donating milk. Hopefully I can help