Hi all,

I work in a large NICU that draws families from a large geographic area.
Many families live 4+ hours' drive from our hospital.  Our unit
(unfortunately) does not have beds for parents to sleep in, so many
out-of-town parents stay at a nearby non-profit group "home away from
home" house until their babies are discharged from the hospital.

The house offers private bedrooms where parents sleep and a communal
kitchen where they can cook and eat.  Per house rules, parents are not
allowed to have any food or drink in their bedrooms because of concerns
about insect/pest infestations.  So moms who pump/express milk in the house
label their milk with hospital-provided labels and then store their milk in
the communal fridge or freezer before bringing it to our NICU.

Recently several moms staying at the house reported that some of their
expressed milk had been "disappearing" from the house communal freezer.
They suspected that another mom staying at the house had been taking their
milk and re-labeling it with her baby's labels.

Within our hospital, our policy is for two RNs to check milk labels before
giving a baby expressed milk, to prevent the possibility that a baby is
given milk from the "wrong" mom.  Obviously, though, we have no control
over what happens to expressed milk before it arrives on our unit.

After dealing with the immediate issue of the suspected milk theft, we
(NICU "lactation specialists") talked with the house manager about ways to
prevent situations like this from occurring again in the future.  We talked
about the possibility of providing moms with small breastmilk storage
fridges for their bedrooms, but the manager rejected that idea out of
concern that it would invite moms to store other food in the fridges, which
would violate house rules against food in bedrooms.  We also talked about
providing the house with a large freezer and individual locked storage
bins, with the idea that each pumping mom would be provided with a storage
bin key on admission to the house, which she would return upon check-out.
The manager rejected that idea out of concern that moms would lose keys and
that the lost keys would create hassles for house staff.  (My own
concern is that a system like this would create yet another hurdle for moms
who need to pump at night.  Can you imagine unlocking and re-locking
freezer storage containers after pumping at 3 am, and then going back to
sleep?)  The house manager did not offer any ideas of her own.

My questions for you all are:  How do other hospitals ensure the "safety"
of milk pumped at independent group houses where many NICU moms stay?  What
steps do they take to prevent milk theft/re-labeling from occurring?  And
does anyone have any ideas about what might work in our hospital's
situation, given the constraints that I mentioned?

I greatly appreciate any information/thoughts/suggestions you can provide.

Sincerely,
Lisa Lostetter, RN, LLLL
New Mexico, USA

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