Hello Karleen
I have only just re-subscribed to Lactnet after a long absence. I was interested in your post referring to the anonymity of blood donations as compared to milk donation. I have recently started work in the blood donation field (from the government side) and although blood donations are anonymous to recipients, the blood (in Australia anyway) is fully traceable, and any adverse event can look back to where the blood initially came from. 
There are so many differences between blood and milk donations, and I think it would be interesting to interview the mothers of the recipients of the donor milk, and the mothers who may have been offered but refused donor milk. So many women are prepared to donate milk, yet far fewer are prepared to accept it. With more heart-warming stories emerging from recipients of donor milk (similar to the heart-warming storied of blood recipients), not only would more mothers be encouraged to donate, but perhaps more mothers would be happy to use donor milk.
I wish the government would spend even a teensy portion of the money spent on blood banks on human milk banks. 

Iona Macnab LLLL IBCLC
Australia

Date:    Sun, 6 Nov 2011 23:18:46 +1100
From:    Karleen Gribble <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: discussion of why milk bank donation is usually anonymous

Hi Jacquie,
I'm thinking of sharing of information back from recipients to donors, not necessarily identifying but certainly information about why the recipient needed donor milk and the outcome of the use of the milk. I'm interested because I am currently writing a paper on the interaction with milk banks and opinions of milk banking of women involved in peer-to-peer milk sharing and one thing that has come through very strongly is that some women need the knowledge of the situation of the recipient and outcome of donation in order to be motivated and interested in donating milk- hence one reason why donating to a milk bank was not for them because they get no feedback from a milk bank. Other research on milk bank donors (from S America) has similarly found that donors want to know how their milk is used. And then there is a new paper in BFMed on a model in Malaysia where a hospital facilitates mother to mother milk sharing within the hospital system where donor and recipient meet one another. In that instance it is not about motivation but about meeting requirements of Islamic law. 
Anyway, I suspect that with milk banking that it is a hangover from blood donation which is the basis for so much in the milk banking world....but milk is not like blood in so many ways.
Karleen Gribble
Australia

On 07/11/2011, at 10:55 AM, Jacquie at Milk Matters wrote:

> "I was wondering if anyone here is aware of any research discussing why donation of milk via a human milk bank is usually anonymous?"
> Karleen Gribble
> Australia

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