IN addition to the collection, storage and redistribution of donated milk, mothers and milk must be tested.  Lab testing can be quite costly.  IN addition, only certain mothers are eligible to donate to milk banks.  For your reading pleasure, check out http://www.wakemed.org/body.cfm?id=1231 which is a great sheet on donating milk. 



-----Original Message-----

From: Lactation Information and Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sarah Vaughan

Sent: Monday, May 27, 2013 4:39 AM

Subject: Practicalities of increasing donor milk availability?



Changing topic somewhat, I was curious about this statement from Susan Burger:



<The reason why human milk is so unavailable is merely marketing.  The procedures for making human milk available are really no different than the procedures for making the milk of any other mammal available and all are quite well known to science and even my mother and my grandmother knew how to pasteurize milk.  It is not rocket science. >



I think this is a great point - why is the process of producing donor human milk for infant consumption so much more expensive than the process of producing cow's milk based formula for infant consumption? 



I mean, I can think of one obvious difference - the available supply. After all, part of the procedure for making the milk of other mammals available is to build up a large herd of lactating mothers who continue to have their milk expressed on a regular twice-daily basis for many years after weaning their own offspring, adding to that herd where needed by means of breeding more offspring to be raised for that purpose, and that's not exactly going to be feasible with humans. So we'll never have the same kind of potentially unlimited (for practical purposes) supply, although there's certainly scope for increasing the pool of milk donors a great deal through advertising. But what other differences are there that make human milk so much more expensive?



I recall that when a question about milk donation came up recently, a couple of the people replying said they worked in this field, so maybe someone here can explain the reasons for the difference in cost. I'm now really curious!





Best wishes,



Dr Sarah Vaughan

MBChB MRCGP



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