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Original poster

Todays moral dilema

125 replies

Beabea · 28/10/2006 20:39

I have a friend visiting who breast feeds her 1yr old son. As he is not with her on this trip she has had to express some off. Should she have thrown away her milk or fed it to my 5week old son.

It doesn't quite sit right with us but we can't really say why.

OP posts:
hunkermunker · 28/10/2006 20:41

Only if you're happy with it.

GraceUnderFire · 28/10/2006 20:57

Why would your son need it?

theHAUNTEDhazelnut · 28/10/2006 21:07

I would not think her milk would do your 5 week old son any good!! Her milk now would just be drinking milk to her year old. Your son needs the best milk possible, her milk would be nowhere near the standers/quality he needs.

SherlockLGJ · 28/10/2006 21:08
Hmm
ScareyCaligulaCorday · 28/10/2006 21:10

Why on earth should you imagine her milk would be a lower standard than any other, hauntedhazelnut?

hairymclary · 28/10/2006 21:11

there is no reason at all why your son shouldn't have it. but if you don't want to give it to him then she could always freeze it for her own son when she gets back

colditz · 28/10/2006 21:13

Depends on what you want. I believe she is under no moral obligation to give it to your son, but it would be morally wrong to give it if you disagreed.

3andnomore · 28/10/2006 21:21

Well it would not do your child any harm, if that is what you are concerned about, because, well, it is quite a usual thing still in other cultures and used to be in ours to do this, and if you trust your friend and know she is healthy.....but then, you have to feel comfortable with it and if you are not then so be it!However, if you are FF, then actually your firend would do your child a good thing, as bm is easier digested then formula and is a "live" product....and am sure the cows that the FF is derived from are older ;)(TONGUE IN CHEEK THIS ONE< O.K.)

saadia · 28/10/2006 21:41

I'm not quite sure what the issue is here. Do you want her to feed it to your ds? Are you bfing him? If you are then why would he need hers, if you're not then how can you expect her to do something that you don't do?

ilovecaboose · 28/10/2006 21:44

saadia - beabea has started this thread twice (by accident I think). She ahs come back on to say it is a hypothetical problem and just wondered what people thought. She is ff.

HOpe that clears some of the questions up.

saadia · 28/10/2006 21:46

thanks for that ilovecaboose, will have a look at the other thread.

theHAUNTEDhazelnut · 28/10/2006 21:55

ScareyCaligulaCorday as I said in my post. The quality for her friend milk after a year of feeding her 1 year old is not very good. remember her son is only 5 weeks old

hairymclary · 28/10/2006 21:59

are you serious haunted hazelnut????????

ELF1981 · 28/10/2006 22:07

I can see theHAUNTEDhazelnut's point. Milk adapts as the baby grows, so what is in the milk nutritionally is 1 year is not the same as it was at five weeks.

hairymclary · 28/10/2006 22:09

it may not be exactly the same, but it wouldn't harm him. and it'd be better than formula and could also be used to supplement an already bf baby

theHAUNTEDhazelnut · 28/10/2006 22:26

Yes I am hairymclary. And ELF1981 sees it too.

If you want to look at it with the use of cows as these are animals which we get our milk from most. After a year of being milked, the cows milk is in very poor quality. Thats why they have more calf's. So you can keep getting the good quality milk.
The calf's that are taken away from there mums after about a week. If they are kept on the farm, they then get fed milk from other new mums that have just had calf's. The extra milk that they make can not go for us to use so they use on these calf's taken away from mums after a week.

Our milk is about the same, after a year of feeding, the quality of the milk is only good enough to feed a baby eating other foods. A 5 week old baby needs better milk than that.

If the friend`s baby was about the same age then it would be ok to feed the 5 week old.

There is also, you should not feed a baby that is 3 or 4 months old and older new mums milk as this can be too strong for that age of baby, and can make the baby very ill as it is too rich.

theHAUNTEDhazelnut · 28/10/2006 22:28

I should have also said that if the friends baby was say 6 months old, then it would be ok for the other mums milk as he/she would be eating other foods by then and would not need to so good quality milk.

theHAUNTEDhazelnut · 28/10/2006 22:33

hairymclary, what if there is a bug in the others mums milk? Not deadly to her baby but could be to a 5 week old!!

This is a 5 week old baby we are talking about here. nearly new born!!

MrsApron · 28/10/2006 22:34

thats tosh. milk banks mix the milk of everyone who donates and it is hen given to babies that need it. they don't grade it acording to age.

what about mine am feeding dd2 9 week and dd1 2.5 is my milk low quality?

theHAUNTEDhazelnut · 28/10/2006 22:39

MrsApron Your milk is now from the birth of your 9 week old DD. Not from your first DS!

I dont know how milk banks work, I bet it checked before be given out though!!!!

theHAUNTEDhazelnut · 28/10/2006 22:41

sorry I said DS, ment DD1

MrsApron · 28/10/2006 22:45

milk bank info

blueshoes · 28/10/2006 22:45

I may be wrong but I remember something about milk banks not accepting the milk of mums who delivered more than 6 months ago.

3andnomore · 28/10/2006 22:47

Honetly I know I did the tongue in cheek commetn but sorry, you can not compare a cow to a human being....

3andnomore · 28/10/2006 22:50

Blueshoes, that I am sure is about the fact when they start not how lng they do it...anyway, teh occasionl bf from another woman is not going to do any harm, and the point about bm of a newborn being maybe "dangerous the other way around" is tosh, too, afterall, moms do tandem feed and usually one is a toddler over 1 year and one a newborn! ANd yes, I do agree, that of course the milk will be more tailored to the Newborn and be richer, but like I said the odd milkfeed of an older Baby is not going to do any harm and if it wans't that odd then the milk would adjust if fed directly!

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