>A while back we had an interesting discussion on whether or not a baby
>receiving bone marrow donations could receive human milk.  What about the
>other way around?  Is there any risk or precautions for a lactating woman
>who will donate bone marrow?  A local mom is considering signing up for a
>marrow donor list but does not want to put her baby at risk.  TIA

I am catchingup but I will reply now even if it's been addressed as I know
how FRUSTRATING it can be to have a question unresponded to:  Ther is not a
danger to the child of a women in donating her bone marrow for a potential
recipient as the "team" that harvests the marrow removes it with a bore
type needle from the iliac crests of the donor. It does however involve
some type of anesthesia, either general or for the stong at heart local or
perhaps regional like an epidural ask the team your options..... the safest
short acting general often used for premies and neonates for surgery is
Sufentanyl or Fentanyl (Su- bing the shortest acting the other concerns is
the "rundaown" feeling many may feel for a few days afterwrds fatigue etc.
but this is not dangerous to the donor or brfed infant, I'm not sure how
strict the rules are for each team in their harvesting criteria they are
rather strict in terms of protectiona for the recipient s in virus free
condition and free of any drugs otc or prescription they do use smokers as
was my brother in law who donated for my husband.... he had to have a clean
slate but I never would have guessed they would have chosen my Bro in law
as he had a long history of alcoho use drugs and women but had been "clean"
for at least 3 years  so they picked him out of a pool of 4 potential
donors however. Women who have born a child or heve been pregnant including
abortions can be rejected because they carry markers in their blood that
come from any pregnancy (that had it's own blood type) that can cause graft
versus host disease in the recipient AND THIS IS POTENTIALLY FATAL TO THE
RECIPIENT PATIENT, The extensive testing the team does on the blood of the
potential donor will rule out it's use if it has too many conflicting
components called HLA typing (human leukocyte antigens)  No one will be
informed of the reasons any donor is rejected for transplant unless a
disease is discovered that could be unknown or undiscovered ie HIV only
thenn will the donor be informed. This is a very controlled and ethically
bound system. The biggest disaster is that  there are TOO FEW BONE MARROW
DONORS FOR TOO MANY NEEDY PATIENTS especially DONORS OF COLOR
African-American, Native American, Asian, Hispanic and Mediterranean
PLEASE DONATE AND PLACE YOUR BLOOD ON THE NATIONAL REGISTERY speak to your
local blood bank.