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Feminism: chat

Company selling human breast milk for profit - female exploitation?

107 replies

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.

  1. 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?

OP posts:
QuentinBunbury · 27/08/2021 16:49

Breastfeeding is very convenient for people that can do it. On tap, heated to the right temp, don't even have to really wake up.
I don't think mothers should be made to feel guilty of they can't Breastfeeding, I don't think human milk should be sold, but I do think there should be support and encouragement to try breast-feeding in preference to formula as much as possible

KimikosNightmare · 27/08/2021 17:50

I really can't get worked up about this. It seems a niche market for all concerned. Using the milk seems an enormous faff.

NiceGerbil · 27/08/2021 17:59

'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.'

If you don't have to pump when the baby is younger (eg to go to work) and once you've both got the hang of it and letdown pain etc has gone. It's incredibly convenient and very importantly it's free. As long as you don't forget to take your breasts with you when you go out with the baby then it's done.

Where do you get the idea that bf is more expensive and involved than bf?

NiceGerbil · 27/08/2021 17:59

Second should be FF obv!

RobinPenguins · 27/08/2021 18:02

I don’t really understand the motivation of women donating to a company that’s selling it at profit? It didn’t sound like they were receiving payment themselves, unless it’s payment dressed up as “expenses”.

In countries like the UK with safe alternatives, donor milk should be kept for the small number of babies who really need it, in NICU etc.

NiceGerbil · 27/08/2021 18:03

I'm also surprised that they just pasterise it. Are there no more involved safety regs? Probably not as no one thought it would happen.

What do NHS do to donated blood?

Does pasteurisation kill hiv for example?

NiceGerbil · 27/08/2021 18:04

NHS does lifestyle assessments and

'What screening takes place?
Potential donor mothers have to be screened for the following.
n Screening for infections
Although you are screened during pregnancy for HIV, Hepatitis
B and Syphilis, to become compliant with the other milk
banks around the UK we now require, with your consent, a
postnatal blood test showing negative before we can accept
you as a donor.
Please contact your GP to request blood tests for the following:
• Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)
• Hepatitis B & C
• Human T Cell Lymphotropic Virus (HTLV)
• Syphilis
• HIV is a virus which causes Acquired Immunodeficiency
Syndrome (AIDS), the name given to a collection of diseases
which develop because the immune system breaks down. It is
possible to carry the virus for many years without becoming ill.
• Hepatitis B is a virus that infects the liver cells and can cause
inflammation of the liver. Hepatitis C is also a virus that
infects the liver only shows no symptoms until significant
damage is done.
• HTLV is from a family of retroviruses that are known to
cause cancer in the white blood cells called T-cell leukemia/
lymphoma.
• Syphilis is a sexually transmitted bacterial infection'

NiceGerbil · 27/08/2021 18:07

Looks like they do similar

'Our mothers who provide their excess milk are offered a small amount of compensation for the time and expense associated with providing their milk.'

I wonder why the women don't donate to the NHS?

QuentinBunbury · 27/08/2021 18:35

I did look into donating to an NHS milkbank when I had children but IIRC it was a huge palaver and I didn't have the energy for it. Maybe this company are taking advantage by making it easy for women to donate.

NiceGerbil · 27/08/2021 18:39

It sounds like the same palaver as it has to follow the same protocols.

And they sell it for £££ and the women get a token amount which seems very weird to me.

Their site has about premature babies on the front page so I think it's a charitable help thing why the women do it. Who they actually sell to I have no idea.

Mumoftwoinprimary · 27/08/2021 18:44

@QuentinBunbury

I did look into donating to an NHS milkbank when I had children but IIRC it was a huge palaver and I didn't have the energy for it. Maybe this company are taking advantage by making it easy for women to donate.
I did donate to the local NICU and it was a massive faff (questionnaire on me, my background etc, blood tests to check for HIV, strict instructions for pumping and storing the milk, having to record the temp of the freezer daily) but I could see the reasoning of all the steps.

I’d be nervous if it was made easier to be honest.

NiceGerbil · 27/08/2021 18:48

Their site says they do the same.

ChateauMargaux · 27/08/2021 21:05

£150 per litre for something they buy at zero cost and then pasturise which presumably kills all the beneficial bacteria.

Milk banks are a good idea.

Peer to peer milk sharing is a good idea.

Selling human milk for profit is not a good idea.

But this is how communism failed and capitalism reigns... those who have give to those in need versus those who are coerced or conned into given what they have give to those who can pay.

ChateauMargaux · 27/08/2021 21:05

giving...

LobsterNapkin · 27/08/2021 21:43

My only real issue is that they are donating and then it's being sold for profit.

Milk banks are an important resource but not always available to all who need them as they tend to only have enough milk for at risk babies, and it would be great if human milk was more widely available.

Whether it could ever be done in a way that's financially viable outside of a donation situation I don't know. But I'd rather see it as it seems now, with small compensation for mums and the milk is donated or sold for a very low fee. I suspect though it would still not be enough for general sales and would have to somehow be directed to more vulnerable infants.

ChattyLion · 28/08/2021 08:52

As well as the potential for horrible physical and economic exploitation and depressing sexualisation of this issue by adult men, selling human milk doesn’t appear to be falling under routine health risk monitoring protection nor flagged up under consumer protections around food safety. Hmm

It doesn’t look like breast milk sale was included in the anti-exploitation legislation banning the sale of other human body products (like blood or organs sales are banned in the UK even where these are matched to recipient and health-screened). These laws prevent exploitation of human bodies and prevent risks to the provider of those body products who is selling them to someone else. They also prevent unsafe or contaminated supply to the end consumer because of the desperate and therefore highly unhealthy situations of people who may be driven to sell their own body products.

Is breast milk and women and babies with an interest in this left unprotected, then because women’s bodies are commodities to exploit, so that’s fine? Or because lawmakers assumed that only a few women would have gone in for this; so it’s not worth spending Parliament’s legislative time on it? Because lawmakers don’t want to think about poor or desperate women and babies and what they might need to do to get by financially? Because as OP says there doesn’t seem to be much research around this and so perhaps lawmakers wouldn’t know or guess about the health risks of selling human milk as food to babies or adults? Because they also assume that all mothers are completely interchangeable with each other so all milk is the same- like we assume with agricultural dairy products?

Always worth thinking about who and what gets legal protections and why those laws might have been put in or not. Due to naivety and sexism/misogyny it looks like there can’t have been any law making in the last few hundred years around selling breast milk commercially. Choicey-choosey people will try to hark back to the good old freedom days of destitute women offering themselves up as commercial wet nursing to richer families, but really, is that what we want to be legimitising for financially unsupported women in this day and age? Where is the political focus on society supporting new mothers so they aren’t desperate for money?

Food safety sales laws at least already give some legal powers to stop the commercialisation of milk as an adult human female body product. Current laws require sale of human body products as food must be to specified legal standards; presumably to avoid passing on infections to the recipient (and you could argue in this specific case- new laws should prevent sale because production could cause harm to the producer and her family).

I just found this page by googling so I can’t vouch for them but maybe it’s worth reporting this to Baby Milk Action who say they monitor baby food (including breast milk substitutes) companies’ actions and set out the legal rules for companies around production and fair advertising. www.bflg-uk.org/uk-laws

www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/mar/02/breast-milk-market-uk-bodybuilding
This Guardian article says that it’s not illegal to sell human milk in the UK but that sellers must be able to demonstrate specific legal standards in this food production. Which it would be extremely difficult for any of them to do.

So maybe an effective action to take against commercial selling could be write to the Food Standards Agency, copying in your MP and asking them to lobby the government to bring in regulation around this specific issue and informing them of the companies or websites already selling this as a product? That way the Food Standards Agency can investigate and use their existing standards to get companies to demonstrate how they are meeting these standards (and from the looks of the FSA quote in the Guardian, companies won’t be able to meet that standard).
Also important to ask MPs to bring forward specific new legislation to protect women and babies from exploitation and think carefully about the effects of society changing the view of human breast milk into being an exploitable human body product in this day and age.

We’re not allowed to sell our own blood or organs or bone marrow in the UK, but we can donate them to those in need, which is brilliant. Breast milk donation via hospitals etc to babies who need it, is also brilliant. But why is is breast milk allowed to be openly sold? Is it because only women make milk, but men make blood and organs too? Hmm

Enforcement and new legislation might not stop underground selling online but could help to stop companies advertising sale of breastmilk in the UK and thereby making that sale look legitimate (ethically, and in terms of safety).

Food Standards Agency reporting link here:
www.food.gov.uk/contact/consumers/report-problem
Find your MP here:
members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP

Obviously there is also the possibility of male bodies with the aid of powerful medications lactating and selling on that milk as a food product. So logically the same legal restrictions should be applied to men selling on their milk just as they would to women. Even though this is far greater an issue centred around female economic deprivation and exploitation, and the absolute focus should be on not leaving mothers so desperate for enough money that they feel they need to sell breastmilk.

NantesElephant · 28/08/2021 09:05

Brilliant post @ChattyLion

KimikosNightmare · 28/08/2021 09:14

@NiceGerbil

'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.'

If you don't have to pump when the baby is younger (eg to go to work) and once you've both got the hang of it and letdown pain etc has gone. It's incredibly convenient and very importantly it's free. As long as you don't forget to take your breasts with you when you go out with the baby then it's done.

Where do you get the idea that bf is more expensive and involved than bf?

I'm not sure what your last sentence is saying but try reading what I wrote. I had a look at their website. Getting milk from this company is expensive and using it is a faff.

Aside from that bf is convenient for those for whom it's convenient- and that is by no means all women.

Natsku · 28/08/2021 09:24

Do not like the idea of a private for-profit company getting involved with milk donation, the potential for cutting corners to make more money, putting pressure on mothers to donate more and more, not good. Mothers get paid to donate their breastmilk where I live, but it goes to the hospital to feed newborns, its not sold for a profit, the payment is to make up for the time spent pumping and sterilising the parts and whatnot (30e per litre). It must encourage more mums to donate because the milk wasn't just available for babies in NICU - both my babies had some donor milk as newborns as top ups until my supply increased, so paying the mums isn't the bad part, but selling it for profit is where the issue comes in. And it should just be reserved for newborns in the hospital as formula is perfectly acceptable otherwise.

Heyha · 28/08/2021 09:31

Thank you @ChattyLion that has helped organise my thoughts and I will make some contacts as you suggest- if I lived just over the border I would actually be in the constituency where this 'facility' is so could do a two birds one stone letter to the MP, but it's no hardship to send the same letter to a couple of different places is it 🙂

ErrolTheDragon · 28/08/2021 09:33

Your post wasn't entirely clear tbf- I had to read it a couple of times. I took it as 'one of the benefits for many mothers of breastfeeding is the convenience. But this doesn't apply at all to buying someone else's milk.'
It's probably a lot less convenient than bf or ff I'd have thought.
And prohibitively expensive for most parents.

Donating so that milk can be allocated by need with no profit being creamed off (sorry...) has to be the best approach for every ethical reason. More donations so that there's some for babies lower on the priority list would be good.

LobsterNapkin · 28/08/2021 12:33

I don't think breastmilk is the same as blood or organ donation, other than in the public health sense. Our blood is part of our body, as are our organs, many such things are one time donations with significant health risks, all are highly dependent on new teachnology.

Breastmilk is meant to be used by someone else, and it's entirely possible and sometimes even helpful to be able to give it to someone who isn't one's own child. It's common in many societies to have wet nurses, or to nurse other people's children, including those of friends or extended family. Our tendency to see this as something that is weird when it doesn't involve our own child is unusual.

FatAnkles · 28/08/2021 12:42

I will always be grateful to mums like @Delphinium20 who graciously donated breastmilk to the SCBU who looked after my baby. I couldn't produce a drop (sudden cs at 32 weeks, bf nurse's suggested a shock) and the mums who donated helped produce the healthy teen girl I have now. It was done on an entirely voluntary basis though.

KimikosNightmare · 28/08/2021 15:48

@FatAnkles

I will always be grateful to mums like *@Delphinium20* who graciously donated breastmilk to the SCBU who looked after my baby. I couldn't produce a drop (sudden cs at 32 weeks, bf nurse's suggested a shock) and the mums who donated helped produce the healthy teen girl I have now. It was done on an entirely voluntary basis though.
Lots of things contributed to your daughter being healthy but your sort of view is probably why this company is getting away with charging its extortionate prices.

I bf. I hated every minute. If I couldn't I'm afraid I'd much rather have trusted long , established tried and tested formula than this company.

ChattyLion · 29/08/2021 08:00

I also wonder if some of the campaigning women’s groups might be up for this as an issue to work together on - Object! or Maternity Action? Feels like a lot of women feel very strongly about this.
Maybe a Petition to Parliament to put new laws around it is needed, to head off whatever the next attempts will be in this area? It just seems very odd and untenable that the law seeks to prevent human degradation and exploitation around sale of other human body products.. except the ones that only women produce naturally.
And we know that economic burdens and disparities fall more unfairly on women. So with that background, why are women still the less legally protected group?