I think that Jennifer and Rachel are raising very important questions which must be addressed, especially as milk banking becomes more common in North America and the world. > I've had calls from mothers who were donating significant amounts > of milk, > and their babies were showing signs of suffering from the classic > oversupply > syndrome - not happy at breast, mother never feeling as if her > breasts were > well drained after feeding baby, and the stooling and growth > pattern we > associate with oversupply. Milk banks must teach mothers these signs and mak sure milk bank nurses stay in touch with mothers during their donation time to make sure situations like this don't arise. Does anyone know how common this problem is? Do milk banks have policies in place to prevent it? > I've also had calls from milk donors who were concerned that their > supply > was in danger because they had begun feeding their own baby > expressed milk > they had in the freezer because it had been returned to them by the > bank due > to excessive numbers of white blood cells. They were so concerned > with not > wasting the milk, which was rapidly approaching its 'best before' > date, that > they temporarily stopped breastfeeding or reduced it significantly > in order > to use up the frozen stuff. I have often wondered whether we don't sometimes take the "milk is liquid gold, don't waste a drop" concept a little too far. Pumped milk is second best, especially for our own babies when mother is available. > I don't think there is much focus on any aspects besides > cleanliness of the > collection process here. We just haven't thought enough about what > pumping > for a bank does to the mother and baby dance, as Jennifer so > appropriately > terms it. With all the scientific knowledge and intuitive understanding we have of the breastfeeding dance, I don't think it will be hard to come up with a preliminary set of guidelines for milk banks and for mothers. Then it will become part of breast donor education, like cleanliness of collection and where to drop off your milk. It will also become part of the work that intake nurses, or whoever, do with mothers who are donating milk. > I'm most concerned about what it does to a woman's perception of > breastfeeding and of her breastfed child, when her own milk is very > much a > commodity. The commodification of breastmilk has been a problem since there have been wet nurses. Several recently published books look at the history of wet nursing and various laws and policies that have been enacted over the centuries that address different aspects of this issue. Various religious traditions also have laws that address this both from a practical and a more theoretical frame(how do we think about what it means for a mother to nurse another child?) While these laws and ideas were thought about centuries, and even millennia ago, they demonstrated a clear understanding of all the issues we talk about now, in terms of bonding between mother and baby, the risk to families, mothers and society of making mother's milk a commodity. As we begin our own discussions of these issues it would behoove us to learn from our ancestors. Naomi Bar-Yam -------------------------------- Naomi Bar-Yam Ph.D. [log in to unmask] 617-964-6676 Researcher, Writer, Educator in Maternal and Child Health -------------------------------- *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html