First breast mlik 'depot' opens in South Florida

[superpatriotman]

Color me out of touch. I never knew 'milk banks' existed.

I smell privateers and capitalists all over breast milk at $600/gallon!

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/health/fl-breast-milk-depot-20130228,0,7304408.story

Say hello to Florida's first nonprofit breast milk "depot," the brainchild of a Cooper City mom who couldn't breastfeed her severely allergic baby and discovered how hard it was to find safe donor milk.
The depot, which officially opened Feb. 19 in The Gathering Place maternity center in Miami, aims to chip away at the shortage of breast milk available for frail babies by making safe donation available to more South Florida women. Three Broward County hospitals are among at least 16 in Florida using the processed human milk to feed their neediest preemies.
"The only safe way to share milk is through a milk bank," said Amy Vickers, executive director of the Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas, which receives the South Florida depot's milk for processing. "It's a misappropriated and scarce resource. We would love to have enough milk for all babies, but for pre-term babies, it's life and death."

snip

Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital in Hollywood, Memorial Hospital West in Pembroke Pines and Memorial Hospital Miramar all use milk from Human Milk Banking Association centers in Texas. At $4.50 an ounce, the donor milk is covered by insurance, along with other nutritional and medicinal NICU services, Updegrove said.

video (the good kind) at link

[SheilaT]

1. I was one of those women with

a more than adequate supply. I should have been a wet nurse.

[laundry_queen]

2. Ditto.

Although I found my supply went down with each kid. I could've nursed quintuplets with my first child...she almost didn't have to even suck - the milk just poured into her mouth. I even tandem nursed my first and second kids and had more than enough for 2.

I also knew milk banks existed. They are lifesavers for women who are unable to nurse and have kids with severe digestive issues, or as the article says, preemies. If I'd have been able to donate at the time I was nursing, I would have (I lived too far away from any major cities with milk banks at the time).

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. I would be concerned about safety precautions

and testing of the milk.

[laundry_queen]

4. From what I understand

and I didn't read the whole article, but from what I know about the larger milk banks is that they not only screen donors intensely, they also pasturize the milk, just like they do with cow's milk. That means all pathogens are killed.

[FedUpWithIt All]

5. I'm due in a few months and have really been thinking about donating.

There is a product called a milk saver that collects the milk that lets down from the non-feeding breast while you nurse. So much is typically wasted so i figured i could collect this extra and combine it with some supplemental pumping.

Some feel that the antibodies in breast milk can make a life or death difference for some preemies.

[Codeine]

6. That sucks.

[Liberal_in_LA]

7. good idea

[lynne]

9. I provided breast milk for about 24 preemies -

- but that was 34 years ago when my daughter was a preemie. I'd pump for her and for the entire ward. Sounds like a lot but its not since the preemies ate such small quantities, some just a few cc's per feeding.

Hospitals quit allowing other preemie mothers to pump for the ward over liability concerns some years ago and there was no substitution for a while. I learned of these milk banks when my grandson (son of my preemie daughter) was in NICU after he was born. IMO, the $4.50 an ounce is a reasonable price considering the small amount each preemie consumes.