Dear Folks:

Liz Brooks was referring to the Prolacta company, that makes truly human
milk derived products for the NICU population.

Their products are expensive, just as any blood products are expensive. The
testing required to ensure safety and the processing (the milk comes in 4
different caloric strengths)  make it so. Would you want to be given cow
blood in the ER because the human blood was too expensive? There isn't much
difference between blood and milk.

The challenge here in the US is that the NICU budget drives the healthcare
staff to use cheaper powdered fortifiers in human milk. Can you believe
NICUs use powdered fortifiers that are not sterile, after the WHO
recommendation in 2004, that premature and immunocompromised infants never
receive powdered formula? The label of the powdered formula fortifier from
Ross states "Allergy information: Contains Milk and Soy Ingredients"...just
what you'd want your fragile premature infant to receive. Are parents given
this information??

The other barrier is that the money an exclusively  human-milk fed premature
will save (from earlier discharge, and reduced risk of various acute and
chronic illnesses over its entire life span) does not go show up in the NICU
budget. The savings go to the insurance money or the tax payers over a
period of years, a problem of a fragmented system.

warmly,

Nikki Lee RN, BSN, Mother of 2, MS, IBCLC, CCE, CIMI
craniosacral therapy practitioner
www.breastfeedingalwaysbest.com

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