Feminism: chat
Company selling human breast milk for profit - female exploitation?
Knoxinbox · 26/08/2021 21:17
www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-58343016
1.To me, this seems wrong. Like the article says will women be tempted to donate milk that should be feeding their own babies for money? Even if it doesn’t affect their own babies getting an adequate supply, producing extra milk is not without its health costs to the mother. And I feel that if women are willing to donate milk then isn’t it better it goes to the NICU for premmies rather than for a company to make a profit?
I don’t know this just seems like yet another way to exploit and commercialise women’s bodies to the detriment of their health and possibly to their babies health too.
2. Aside form that, the other issue to me is that breast milk is a live product - full of antibodies from the woman’s immune system. Has there been any long term studies about the affects of consuming breastmilk from multiple sources and therefore multiple women’s white blood cells - could this have to potential to trigger an inflammatory disease in the baby years later?
I myself have an autoimmune arthritis condition as well as PCOS and IBS - and I’m aware that research shows that the longer I breastfeed my babies the more protected they will be from inflammatory diseases in later life. I fed my DD for 3 years and am still feeding 3 year old DS.
But obviously we have a close physical relationship where they have fed directly from my breast and so our immune systems have communicated with each other every day.
Has anyone studied the effects of just ingesting a strangers breastmilk on the recipients immune system long term?
Knoxinbox · 26/08/2021 21:20
Not to mention that I now carry their DNA in my body after gestating them both - so that would have an impact on how readily their infant bodies would have responded to my breastmilk too.
A “stranger” donation wouldn’t have those immunological connections
Delphinium20 · 26/08/2021 23:01
This is awful. I donated my breast milk because I had an over abundance with one of my babies. I did it through a non-profit, volunteer run org. They had requirements on storage and I couldn't be on any medication. I can't imagine getting paid for it. That would have defeated the purpose of my wanting to help out parents. The mom who used mine was going through breast cancer treatment-
ErrolTheDragon · 27/08/2021 00:11
will women be tempted to donate milk that should be feeding their own babies for money?
They're donating it to the company, the piece says, not selling it. The company is making money from it - £45 for 300ml. Sounds like they're exploiting the women who produce the milk and people who will pay that much.
Presumably it would be better for more women to donate to not for profit milk banks.
Knoxinbox · 27/08/2021 00:48
Claudia Campbell is among the mothers who freeze their excess milk and gives it to NeoKare.
She said she did get reimbursed by the firm for the cost of equipment and energy needed to sterilise it.
But she added: "I am not making a lot of money or anything like that. It is a great feeling just to know that I'm helping someone out there."
^^from the article. Sounds like they get some compensation but maybe not that much - that’s even worse for the donating women then isn’t it?
PickUpAPepper · 27/08/2021 00:59
Of course it is exploitation, it is one step along a road towards keeping us as cows on a farm, without even the need to pay to feed and shelter us. I say that as someone who loved breastfeeding. Organised groups of women helping other women is one thing, but that price shows this is not a co-operative. Is there nothing that will not marketise, commodify and turn to their own profit? Every single social contract is being broken in this urgent scramble to exploit the labour of others to create money for the rich in this all shiny “new” technological and virtuous world.
LaBellina · 27/08/2021 01:09
@Knoxinbox
She said she did get reimbursed by the firm for the cost of equipment and energy needed to sterilise it.
But she added: "I am not making a lot of money or anything like that. It is a great feeling just to know that I'm helping someone out there."
^^from the article. Sounds like they get some compensation but maybe not that much - that’s even worse for the donating women then isn’t it?
Apart from the exploitation of the women, I wouldn’t be happy to buy breast milk that came from a stranger who herself was responsible for sterilizing it. Do they do any more quality checks on the milk they receive or do they trust the donor to have done the job herself? The article doesn’t clearly mention what kind of checks are done after the milk was sent to the company, the article mentions a lack of regulations and a donor who apparently does her own sterilization.
After reading this I would be worried that the sale of the products would be a higher priority then checking the safety of it.
PickUpAPepper · 27/08/2021 01:11
Thin end of wedge, Berkeys. Today, we’ll-off women doing it out of the kindness of their hearts and because they enjoy it. Tomorrow poor women being forced to do it to survive. There’s a parallel with the push for “sex-work”. Or are you unaware of just how unequal the US and U.K. are becoming? There’s a thread about culture shock in AIBU or Chat, forget which, which has a high percentage of stories about exactly that. And that’s just from the people who have money enough for internet connections and the time / literacy to use them.
NantesElephant · 27/08/2021 01:18
I don’t understand their business model.
Why would mums donate milk with all the hassle that entails for so little reimbursement? Maybe it appeals to low income mums who are desperate to make a few pounds, but they may also not be able to afford to eat well to produce good quality milk.
NiceGerbil · 27/08/2021 02:33
Oh interesting.
Capitalism in action.
- Note that there is a big pressure on mothers to do xyz perfect etc etc and actually whatever they do it will be wrong and feeling guilt is very common
2. Note that the breast/ formula thing is a massively divisive topic and particularly pressurising and guilt inducing
3. The feeling that it's v important to be natural/ organic/ not give money to big business etc is particularly acute in more affluent families of a certain outlook
BOOM!
sell organic free range breast milk for loads of money!
NiceGerbil · 27/08/2021 02:34
'Mother-of-three Megan Golub said she and her partner had turned to NeoKare after she had struggled to breastfeed her third son Oliver.
After trying formula, "which was even worse", her partner Robin Gibb attempted to find breast milk from elsewhere'
Worse? Worse how? What was the actual problem?
Note it was the man who went hunting for human milk.
NiceGerbil · 27/08/2021 02:44
I mean FFS.
It's just silly.
In the UK for the vast majority of people. There is access to clean water etc. Yes breast milk is an amazing substance but formula isn't lethal or something.
This idea YET AGAIN misses the whole fucking point.
A reason breast milk is good is that-
The composition of the milk changes depending on the baby's age, the weather. I'll bet there's other stuff. I'm no expert. But it's all v clever and it's about the physical feeding process.
The other point is the closeness. This is a controversial one maybe. Anyway. I had pnd and DH is v kind etc. Luckily bf was something I found quite easy. And so feeding meant me holding the baby, skin to skin, hearing my familiar heartbeat, eye contact etc etc. If formula DH would have done most feeds and I would have sat and stared at nothing blankly.
So it's just yet another thing where a complex function of the female body is seen as nothing more than buying any old milk. And the interaction between the woman and her baby is also ignored.
NiceGerbil · 27/08/2021 02:50
@Berkeys
Berkeys a fair point but one that covers both men and women globally and for millennia so a different topic really I think!
PickUpAPepper · 27/08/2021 07:46
And it's never been unusual for a woman to feed another woman's baby if she can't for some reason/ has died etc.
Yes, but not for some unaffected middle man - specifically man I expect too - to make money out of it. I stick with what I said - organised co operative groups of women helping each other is one thing: a private company making money out of it for shareholders is slavery.
Mn753 · 27/08/2021 08:06
I would support women who want to do this to make money, if they're happy to do it, it beats a lot of other things that mothers end up doing for money- pyramid selling etc. I have friends with an oversupply who would have appreciated the money and friends who were desperate to breastfeed but couldn't. Just don't need men exploiting anyone
QuentinBunbury · 27/08/2021 09:06
I'm against this as it provides an opportunity to exploit disadvantaged women. Julie Bindel did research on milk companies in Cambodia which was shocking
www.google.com/amp/s/www.truthdig.com/articles/an-example-of-capitalism-literally-milking-the-poor/%3famp
Producing milk is quite demanding on a females physiology and it's not like the dark ages where if a woman couldn't feed her own child, she'd have to find someone else to do it or the baby would die. We have perfectly adequate formula.
Pucarbuile · 27/08/2021 09:09
It's not about this company (I think, haven't listened to this podcast in a while) but this episode of Reply All is one I found interesting and some of you might in the context of this discussion - Milk Wanted. It's about 30 mins long.
Doyoumind · 27/08/2021 09:20
This is so wrong. They are running as as a commercial enterprise and not paying the women who provide the milk? 
It would be exploitation that I don't agree with even if they were being paid, but to expect them to donate it is absolute exploitation. I get there are costs involved in the processing that they need to cover but this is a totally unethical business model.
Heyha · 27/08/2021 09:54
I can't reconcile women donating it and then a company selling it at such a high price. If the women were donating and it was being sold at a not for profit basis (because I can imagine the point about milk banks only being for NICU being quite a valid issue). Or some sort of online matching service where I donate and they hook me up with someone directly, I could maybe believe they're offering a service. This is just pure profiteering, surely?
KimikosNightmare · 27/08/2021 13:18
@Needapoodle
The other claim about bf is that it's so convenient (setting aside the question of whether that's even true) having had a look at the company's website it seems to be an expensive faff.
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