Marsha,
  I like this idea, and you are right that someone should do a  
careful more formal analysis.

There is a contradiction in using the cost of processing human milk  
at a milk bank as  the
value of human milk. HMBANA milk is not sold or bought, using the  
$3.50-$4.00/oz charged
by HMBANA milk banks will confuse people. What other measures can be  
used to put some
kind of dollar value on something as priceless as breast milk? I  
think calculations have been
made about health dollars saved by breastfeeding. Can we divide those  
dollars by number of
ounces or quarts or gallons of milk and see what we get? Has the  
value of blood or other
body fluids or organs been calculated? What measures were used?  
Certainly courts are
asked to put dollar values on human life and limb all the time. How  
are such measures
made? insurance companies insure the hands of famous cellists, the  
legs of athletes. How
are these things measured?

I would also be cautious about using IQ points. I'm not really sure  
that IQ is a very good
measure of anything and "intelligence" is very complicated, both  
where it comes from
and how to measure it. I worry that when we use the breastfeeding  
increases your IQ by
X points argument that we are not taken seriously by people who  
should be in this
conversation with us and on our side.

Just some thoughts.

Naomi Bar-Yam

On Oct 22, 2006, at 12:44 PM, LACTNET automatic digest system wrote:

> The price of donor milk could be used for valuing human milk, but  
> if it is
> from a Human Milk Banking Association of North America (HMBANA)  
> milk bank, the
> $3.50 per ounce is just the processing cost. HMBANA milk is never  
> sold. In
> 2005, HMBANA dispensed 713,500 ounces of donor milk and at $3.50/oz  
> comes out
> to  $2.5 million, a cost effective way to prevent expenditure of  
> much more
> money by  the health care system.
>
> One mother producing 28oz of milk/day for 365 days would total 10,220
> oz/year. At $3.50/oz, one mother's milk could be worth $35,770,  
> while 2 million
> (half of the 4 million babies born each year) lactating women could  
> account for
> a milk value of $71 billion.

------------------------------------------
Naomi Bar-Yam Ph.D.
Mothers' Milk Bank of New England

[log in to unmask]
617-964-6676
------------------------------------------






             ***********************************************

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 email list is powered by LISTSERV (R).
There is only one LISTSERV. To learn more, visit:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html