Great idea. I would argue for HIV testing, though. Disqualifying HIV
positive donors would give a financial incentive for men to help guard
this income stream by not engaging in behaviors that would jeopardize
their wives'/partner's negative status, one would hope.
Catherine Watson Genna BS, IBCLC NYC cwgenna.com
On 5/29/2013 1:34 PM, Pamela Morrison wrote:
> Following these back-and-forths discussions about the cost of donor
> human milk with great interest!
>
> At the risk of being a bit seditious I'll let you know that my friend
> George Kent (author of Regulating Infant Formula) and I have many
> times only half-day-dreamed about the mothers of Africa being paid to
> perhaps sell 30ml - 60ml of their expressed breastmilk every day for
> US$1.00 per ounce, or so, when the the going rate is more than twice
> that, so that it could be exported to where it's clearly so sorely
> needed because Western mothers seem to have so much difficulty in
> producing enough of it. Think about it.... Breastmilk is so
> valuable, yet so scarce that we're actually having these discussions,
> but it's so available and easily produced in Africa . Expressing an
> ounce or two every day would not deprive African babies because their
> mothers would simply make more on demand.
>
> It pleases me to think that these women, who are often so over-worked
> and never paid while caring for whole families in appalling
> conditions, carrying water, digging fields, could earn this little
> sum, which would make them self-sufficient financially to provide for
> their families, reducing their dependance in the very patriarchal
> societies in which they live, with all the vulnerability that that
> entails..... Furthermore, in many developing countries the per capita
> annual income is often less than $1 per day, so the export and
> earnings of such a valuable commodity could go a long way towards
> reversing the poverty of a whole continent. People often shrink in
> horror at the thought of milk donors not being screened, particularly
> when the risk of transmittable diseases like HIV is factored in, but
> I've never understood why, unless it's actually anticipated that milk
> banks will make mistakes to inadvertently allow some raw milk into the
> supply chain. These women live on natural foods because they cannot
> afford the expensive junk foods we eat in the West. Nor can they
> afford to drink, smoke, or take drugs and the very point of
> pasteurization is to inactivate all pathogens anyway. There is often
> also shock at the thought of milk donors being paid - but mother's
> milk is a _valuable_ resource - isn't it madness really to trivialize
> its worth by insisting that it can only be donated?
>
> Ah well ..... but it _is_ an intriguing thought.
>
> Pamela Morrison IBCLC
> Rustington, England
> -------------------------------
> > I believe that if we want to have it accessible to the populations
> that need it then we have to do a better job of increasing the
> awareness and value of breastfeeding and human milk.
>
>
>
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