Milk-Sharing vs. Milk Banks

The good news is more new moms want to breastfeed, so awareness of the beneifts is up obviously.  But what happens if you want to feed your baby breastmilk but you can't produce enough whether through pumping or breastfeeding.  Or maybe you adopted but want to give your baby breastmlk and you aren't lactating.  it's not uncomon to need to supplement.  If you want to supplement with breastmilk, the question becomes where do you get it.   Increasingly there are more sources---from private mothers' groups,  online parenting forums, online auction sites like Craigslist and Ebay.  But the safest place to go is a milk bank.  There are several Milk Banks in North America and 1 in Canada.  Only at a milk bank is donor milk tested for bacteria, viruses, and disease etc.  A donor's health history is looked at.  If the milk is accepted after all the screening, it's then pasteurized, retested, and sold. 

There are other informal organiztions that offer milk sharing but none adhere to the strict screening and testing that milk banks do.  And while some of these organizations encourage donors and recipients to follow the same guidelines as milk banks, not all do.  It's also possible to contaminate the milk when transfering it from one storage unit to another if it's not handled properly. 

The problem with milk banks is cost and demand.  Often much of the milk is bought by doctors prescribing it for patients in neo-natal units at hospitals.  And it's not cheap.  Milk bank milk can cost around $3-$5 an ounce.  Considering your baby may drink between 24-30 ounces a day, it gets expensive ( it's usually not covered by insurance unless a doctor has prescribed it).

So what's the answer?  More milk banks.  But that takes money too.  The milk banks are funded by grants and other fundraising efforts.