Karleen

How fascinating about your study into milk-sharing.

I hadn't quite put it all together, but you are right, the mothers are 
usually very keen to know where their milk goes.  It certainly is not 
practical in most cases to put donors in touch with the recipients, and 
perhaps it may not always be desirable (confidentiality reasons?).

To be clear in my story of Baby M, Milk Matters has inspired several 
hospitals to run their own milk banks, or pass on the milk when it's not 
being used in-house.  It happened that at the time Baby M was born, there 
was a little pool of local donors and somehow it must have been mentioned 
that there was a sick baby in our local hospital who was getting their milk. 
It was easy enough for the donors to look through the window of the 
high-care unit (once he was out of NICU) when they were dropping off their 
milk, and pretty soon the nurse on duty would be "showing off" Baby M when 
the donors popped in. It worked for us because it's a small place.

At another time when we didn't have any sick babies in the local hospital, 
one of the donors I collected from would ask repeatedly if she could travel 
with me to the Cape Town depot to see the babies her milk was going to. When 
we reached our 500th donor and had a celebratory morning tea party to thank 
donors, the hospital allowed a tour of the wards, and it was a very popular 
part of the gathering.

Anyway, your post has given me something to think about.  I try to send out 
a newsletter now and then and haven't found the time this year yet, 
blush.... evidently it would be a bridge between actual inspiring contact 
and anonymous donation.  Thank you. I would be  very interested to read and 
share the study with my colleagues when it's completed.

Best wishes
Jacquie Nutt IBCLC
Milk Matters
www.milkmatters.org

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