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Subject:
From:
Naomi Bar-Yam <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 14 Feb 2011 09:58:27 -0500
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There is a feature article on donor milk banking in the Boston Globe  
today.

You can find it here today. After today you may have to register to  
see it. Text below.

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/articles/2011/02/14/breast_milk_from_donors_is_proving_helpful_in_the_brighams_neonatal_icu_and_elsewhere/


The milk of human kindness
By Brenda Goodman
Globe Correspondent February 14, 2011
Any other day, James Hobbs might be found shouting orders to Marine  
reservists at Fort Devens, working hard to
prepare them for the rigors and hazards of deployment.
But on a recent afternoon, Hobbs, 38, was finding that his  
considerable powers of persuasion were having little effect
on a new addition to his unit.
His infant son, Ryder, who along with his three brothers, Cooper, Jax,  
and Finn, was born more than two months
ahead of schedule on Dec. 22 at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in  
Boston, was refusing to eat.
Nestled against his dad’s tattooed bicep, Ryder was falling asleep as  
James brushed his lips with the rubber nipple
of a doll-size bottle.
“I don’t think he’s going to take any more. He’s pretty sleepy,’’ said  
nurse Tina Steele, a lactation consultant in the
Brigham’s neonatal intensive care unit.
Steele resumed Ryder’s feeding by slipping a small, soft tube down his  
nose and into his stomach, where it would
continue to deliver steady amounts of milk.
When babies are born small and very early, as the Hobbs quadruplets  
were, one of their most pressing tasks in life
is to grow.
In order to grow, they have to eat.
The preferred food for all babies is their mother’s own breast milk,  
which is rich in protective antibodies, enzymes,
and growth factors that are thought to be critical to their health and  
development. But some moms, like Christine
Hobbs, who had part of a breast removed in 2007 after cancer attacked  
her milk ducts, can’t make enough of their
own.
Under those circumstances, infants in a hospital’s neonatal intensive  
care unit would normally get a soy- or cow’s
milk-based formula.
But thanks to a recent change in the Brigham’s policy, the Hobbs  
quadruplets had a different option. They were fed
breast milk from a donor, another mother who had extra to share.
The hospital changed its policy to make human milk, including milk  
from donors, the “standard of care’’ in January
2010, after reviewing new research that showed important health  
benefits for fragile babies, becoming one of the first
hospitals in the United States to do that.
“The babies who get breast milk feed faster, go home sooner, than the  
ones who get commercial formula,’’ says Dr.
Robert M. Insoft, a neonatologist who is medical director of the  
Brigham’s neonatal intensive care unit. “Remember,
breast milk isn’t just nutritional, it’s medicinal, and especially to  
this population, it’s no different than giving a
lifesaving antibiotic, in my eyes, because of what it contains.’’
Hospitals aren’t alone in trying to tap the benefits of breast milk. A  
network of 10 nonprofit milk banks in North
America that pasteurize donated breast milk and distribute it to  
infants is set to more than double in size in the
coming months, adding six more facilities — including the Mother’s  
Milk Bank of New England, in Newtonville, which
says it will begin processing milk in March.
Adoptive moms are even using hormone treatments to induce lactation so  
they can breast-feed. And for women who
can’t stomach the high price tags of these products and treatments —  
it costs about $100 a day to feed a full-term
infant breast milk from a nonprofit bank — a booming white market in  
this “liquid gold’’ has emerged on the Internet,
where breast milk is traded on sites such as Facebook and Freecycle.
According to Google Insights, a tool that measures search volume on  
the Internet, queries for the term “breast milk’’ doubled between  
January 2005 and January 2011.
There are no safeguards or quality controls in place when women  
casually swap milk through the Internet. But that
hasn’t deterred Paige Eastman Dickinson, 40, a certified professional  
midwife in New Bedford, from collecting milk
from generous mothers all over the state for her daughter Comfort, who  
is 7 months old. Eastman Dickinson had a
problem lactation experts call low supply.
It’s unclear what causes low supply, but having the shortage of breast  
milk seems to go hand-in-hand with fertility
issues and older maternal age. And as more women postpone having  
families into their 40s, doctors say they are
seeing more who have problems with low supply.
Eastman Dickinson worked with her pediatrician for five weeks to try  
to breast-feed. She tried teas and supplements
to increase her milk, but her baby was not gaining weight.
“I looked at the doctor and said ‘I am starving my baby,’ ’’ she said.
That started her on a quest to tap supplies of extra breast milk from  
friends, friends of friends, and Facebook friends,
among others.
Comfort has gotten milk from more than 30 “milk mamas,’’ by Eastman  
Dickinson’s estimate, including a scientist at
Woods Hole who turned over a cache of more than 800 ounces she’d kept  
in a freezer, which lasted the family for
months.
Hospitals use breast milk from milk banks that carefully screen donors  
and then pasteurize and test their milk to
reduce the risks to babies. But those kinds of safeguards don’t come  
cheap. Nonprofit banks charge $3 to $5 an
ounce to cover the costs of processing and shipping, an amount that  
works out to $350 a week to feed a preemie or
$700 a week to feed a full-term baby.
A California company, Prolacta, is selling hospitals a concentrated  
“protein shake’’ made from donated breast milk as
a prescription-only treatment for premature babies. The company says  
it costs an average of $10,000 per infant to
feed them the fortifier for two months.
As pricey as donor milk is, administrators are hopeful they may  
ultimately be saving money by preventing
complications that require costly surgery and getting babies home more  
quickly. At minimum, it costs about $2,000 a
day for a baby to stay in the neonatal ICU.
“Data is getting stronger and stronger about how much better these  
babies do,’’ says Dr. Kathleen Marinelli, a
neonatologist who is director of lactation support services at  
Connecticut Children’s Medical Center and medical
director of the Newtonville milk bank. The risk of necrotizing  
entercolitis, a particularly fearsome complication for
preemies that destroys intestinal tissue, is reduced to near zero, she  
says. “They have better eyesight, fewer
infections; they get out of the hospital faster, and they’re less sick  
in the first few years of life.’’
For James Hobbs, who got to bring Ryder to the family’s home in Ashby  
after a month in the neonatal intensive care
unit, the donor breast milk had value that went far beyond price.
Worried that Ryder might be too cold in a chilly house, James cupped  
his hands over his infant son’s head on his
first night at home.
“He laid on the bed with his hands on his head and just looked at him  
all night long,’’ Christine Hobbs said. “He did
not sleep all night long. He just kept feeling him. He just watched  
him all night long.’’
Brenda Goodman can be reached at [log in to unmask]
© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.



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

[log in to unmask]
617-527-6263
www.milkbankne.org
------------------------------------------








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