Here are some answers to some questions posted this week. Thank you for 
your interest.
1. We are helping new moms succeed at breastfeeding. Once they succeed and 
are nursing their own babies well, it's only natural that they want to 
help other moms with their babies.  They like the fact that all of the 
milk is going for very sick babies aned many of them have quite a lot of 
milk in their freezers and they don't want to throw it awat. We send our 
milk to Prolacta for processing and distribution only to neonatal 
intensive care units.
2. We are not yet a member of HMBANA but are interested in looking into 
it. We do no pasteurize on site. We provide initial donor screening, 
facilitate the blood test and ship it to a central lab, collect the cheek 
swab for the breast milk fingerprint, then give them their free breast 
pump and their bottles and supplies. Then, they bring the pumped milk 
back, we scan it into our Donor Center Management system software and 
create the audit trail and and the shipping labels to ship the frozen milk 
to Prolacta for processing. The shipping container even contains a data 
logger so that we always know that the milk was kept within safe 
temperature levels.
3. We don't sell the milk at all. Mothers who donate to our milk bank do 
so because they want to help sick preemies. But I think that other milk 
banks do charge for their milk , but I may be mistaken. We can't send any 
milk to mothers because #1 all of the milk is shipped by Prolacta to 
hospital neonatal units and they do not sell directly to consumers. When 
we get phone calls for milk to be sold directly to a family, we always 
give the number of the nearest HMBANA milk bank.
3. Until we opened there were only two licensed milk banks in Ca, one in 
San Jose and one at Westlake Village.
4. The best way to explain it is that everyone you listed is passionalely 
committed to making donor milk universally available to all patients in 
need. There seems to be two basic models, the HMBANA model where the milk 
bank has to do everything, including processing and needs to raise the 
money to cover the losses and the initial purchase of the equipment or the 
Prolacta model where we are provided with all of the basic equipment and 
are given the right to use the Donor Center Management software system 
plus the SOP's for milk banking filed with the State of Ca. Plus we liked 
the fact that the business model allowed us to focus on care for the mom 
and baby and not have to constantly be fund raising to keep our doors 
open. I think there's a need for both models and let the people choose 
what is best for them. 

I would also like to clarify a question from earlier in the week about the 
milk being used for research for adult theraputics. All of the milk from 
qualified donors is processed for premature and critically ill babies. 
When we receive milk that is not in compliance with the requirements, 
mothers are offered the opportunity to donate it for research. Prolacta 
currently uses this milk to optimize their processing methods to preserve 
more nutrients, and to look at levels of sIgA and other protective factors 
within human milk. Thanks

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