" I agree that you have
 to be careful who you are getting your milk from.  I wonder about perfect
strangers, if I were going that route, I would try and use a milk bank.
However, if it is my sister, my friend etc.  I think I can judge by their
lifestyles how safe their milk is.  I also find it difficult to
believe  that a drug
addict or someone using other risky behaviours are going to be  breastfeeding
and donating anyway. "

As someone who donated milk to a friend's 2 sons (the first for 12
months, the 2nd for 6 months...these lengths of time having more to do
with how big an age gap there was between her current child and my
child than with my desire to provide milk as long as I could), I would
like to say that I would, in a heartbeat, stop providing milk and tell
her to stop using it if I had ANY doubts about the "quality" of my
milk.  There could be several reasons for this, but we had an
agreement that this was how things would be done (plus I did have all
the blood tests the milk banks require repeated every 6 mos, but she
didn't pasteurize my milk).  I shipped the milk on ice by Purolator to
her home, every time I had enough in my freezer.

I know without a doubt that I would rather have a trusted friend nurse
my child than use formula.  I even chose my children's legal guardian
(should my husband and I die in an untimely manner) mostly because she
agreed that she would nurse them if they were still babies under about
a year when she got them...if they wanted to.  She nursed all her
children to at least 2-2.5 years so I felt that was about as generous
as I could find in the people I know and who I'd feel comfortable
sending my children to.

Fio

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