how to save a life: my experience donating human breast milk

Maybe I’m telling this story a bit backwards. I had a horrendous difficult time with Miles and nursing, so I decided to exclusively pump my breast milk. How hard could that be? I’ll be writing about that here in the next few weeks. But I digress. 

When Miles was 3 months old I started producing an abundance of milk, so I started freezing my extra milk. By the time he was 4 or 5 months old I had almost 900 ounces of milk in our freezer.

At this time I was going to a Mommy and Me group at the local hospital and saw a poster for Mothers’ Milk Bank at Austin (www.milkbank.org). I started to investigate the option of donating my extra milk. My original goal with pumping was to go for nine months and have enough in reserve to get me to Miles’ birthday, but then I found out about fragile infants and the demand for human donor breast milk.

Here are some things I learned in my search:

There are approximately 500,000 babies born preterm every year. Another way to think of that is one in eight infants. (Source:http://www.cdc.gov/re…/maternalinfanthealth/pretermbirth.htm)

The number two leading cause of deaths in premature infants is necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). (Source:http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_06.pdf)

“Feeding preterm infants human milk is associated with a significant reduction (58%) in the incidence of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC).” (Source:http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/conte…/129/3/e827.full)

Babies die every year, hell maybe even every day, because their mother’s are unable to produce enough or any milk for them. Hospitals give preterm fragile infants formula when there is no other option. Sometimes this option directly leads to that fragile infants death. I had to do SOMETHING.

To date I have donated over 700 ounces of breast milk to Mothers’ Milk Bank at Austin. My original goal was 1000 ounces. I did not meet that goal. 

I have no idea how many infants I have helped. But this may put things in perspective.

· A baby weighing 2 pounds takes up to 5.5 ounces of milk per day

· A baby weighing 4.5 pounds takes up to 12 ounces of milk per day 
· A baby weighing 6.5 pounds takes up to 18 ounces of milk per day 
(http://www.milkbank.org/donate-milk/milk-donor-faqs)

There is a huge need for human breast milk for fragile infants; far more babies need human milk than will receive it. Maybe you’re thinking, “I can’t help, I’m not a new mom with extra breast milk to share.” Well, you are wrong. Milk banks exist all over the country and they don’t run on hopes and dreams, they too need money and volunteers to process breast milk. Mothers’ Milk Bank at Austin also has a Charitable Care Program to help families afford donor human breast milk. There is a cost to families receiving donor human milk, a processing fee, and as you can imagine, not everyone can afford this.

Please consider donating time or money to one of the many milk banks in the county and sharing your excess breast milk if you are able or passing along this amazing opportunity to breastfeeding mothers that you may know. Donating my extra breast milk has been one of the most positive, uplifting, self-less acts I have ever done. I wish I could have kept going and I can’t wait to be able to donate more milk in the future.

To find a milk bank hear you head over to www.hmbana.org.