Down the yellow brick road of breast milk donation

After my little guy switched to amino acid formula due to his multiple protein allergies, I had over 200 ounces (about 6.5 quarts) of breast milk sitting in my freezer, all dressed up with nowhere to go. Over the months, I had painstakingly pumped and saved my breast milk to feed him during the two days a week he goes to the baby sitter’s house and for any other occasion that might separate us during a feeding. I also pumped because I overproduced milk, which I later learned was probably because I was pumping too much (more on that vicious cycle later). In the back of my head, I had hoped that even when I weaned Baby from the breast, he could still receive breast milk for several weeks, but alas, we all know how that story ended.

I wanted some good to come from all the late night pumping, tedious washing of parts, and time spent with the awkward bugle horns suctioned to my chest, so I started looking into breast milk donation. I first checked out Helping Hands Milk Bank (http://www.helpinghandsbank.com), a national milk bank, but ended up abandoning that endeavor. Do I want to help premature infants? Sure I do. Do I want to help support the Susan G. Komen for the Cure effort. Absolutely. Do I want to go through a multi-phase process that feels like the equivalent of taking the SATs? Not really. Call me a bad person not following through, but here’s what you have to do to donate:

• Fill out the online application
• Fill out the 50-question health survey
• Take a screening blood and DNA test
• Get a letter from your doctor stating that you are healthy
• Get a letter from your child’s doctor stating that the child is healthy and doesn’t need your breast milk

Then they will consider you. The whole process takes three to four weeks, and in all honesty, it probably isn’t that bad, but it’s intimidating to a new mom who is overwhelmed with caring for a child, working, and remembering her own name. The educational materials on the Website assume that you are still pumping and/or breast feeding, and not that you have a freezer full of baggies, so I wasn’t quite sure how that was going to work. 

I started thinking “think global, act local” and searched around for a local milk bank to help premature infants in my own state. I found Mother’s Milk Bank of New England (http://www.milkbankne.org). They are a new milk bank and just started accepting milk earlier this year. The woman from the milk bank informed me that they could not accept my milk because I took Zantac (an over-the-counter antacid) while nursing. The logical part of my brain said “I understand—these babies need the best, safest milk available.” The irritated part of my brain said “Are you serious? I eat more than five servings of fruits and veggies a day; I wouldn’t touch fast food with a 10-foot pole; I don’t drink alcohol, coffee, or soda, and you’re telling me my breast milk isn’t good enough?”

There are other less structured ways to donate breast milk. You can find any number of groups on Facebook where mothers ask for or offer breast milk. Although I would give my breast milk to a friend in need in an instant, my husband and I discussed the possibility of giving it to a stranger, and it seemed risky. What if the baby who received the breast milk had a reaction? Would we have legal recourse? How would we know the milk got used?

Sigh. I had one last option before the breast milk went down the drain. The woman from Mother’s Milk Bank of New England gave me the contact information for David Newberg, PhD, professor of biology and director of the glycobiology program at Boston College. His research focuses on the properties in breast milk and how it benefits babies. It took a few weeks to arrange a meeting, but Dr. Newburg accepted all of my breast milk for his research. My husband packed up the cooler and drove the hour to Boston and had a quite lovely morning chatting with Dr. Newberg over hot cocoa. Dr. Newberg explained that his findings go to breast feeding advocates as well as formula manufacturers, because, as my husband paraphrased, “The babies don’t get to choose whether they get breast milk or formula, so the research supports both.” My husband got a tour of the lab and saw several experiments in various stages of progress. Quite cool. 

So, although I can’t say that my breast milk directly benefited a premature baby, it is going to a good cause, and I can’t complain about that. If we got to the point where we had to throw it away, I would have had to ask my husband to do it. Throwing it away would feel like throwing away a gift that nature gave me. Don’t get me wrong, we’re a happy formula family now, and I probably would have stopped breast feeding by now anyway if I didn't already have to, but I do think that breast feeding is a gift.

Now that I’ve done the research and hit more than one pothole in my quest to donate breast milk, I suggest a few tips for anyone thinking of donating in the future:

• Know the donation requirements ahead of time so they don’t overwhelm you when you’re ready to donate. You may be automatically excluded because of a medication you take, in which case you can start looking for alternative homes for your excess breast milk.
• Ask around. If you’re comfortable giving your breast milk to a local mom in need, it’s the most direct way to help a baby, although it has risks. You may feel more comfortable giving to a friend of a friend than a total stranger. If you accept breast milk from another mom, you have no way of guaranteeing she is drug and alcohol free, so proceed with caution.
• Quite frankly, don’t pump as much, and then you won’t have any (or as much) to donate. I used to pump in the middle of the night so that I could get through the night without my breasts exploding, but I learned later that this just stimulated more milk production. If I had put up with uncomfortable melons for a few nights, my milk production would have adjusted, and I wouldn’t have ended up with 50 bags in my freezer. I also would have gotten a lot more sleep.
• Donate while you are still lactating. You don’t have to wait until there is no room left in the freezer for real food. Super-producers can pump and ship milk to various milk banks continuously. Certainly, keep a stockpile in the freezer for your own baby in case of an emergency, but as my lactation consultant always said, “fresh is best.”