Milk Banks often receive requests and send milk to infants who are
adopted or mother's can't supply enough milk for their babies. Most of
our milk, however, does go to sick infants. We do need a prescription,
but I have never had a problem getting a physician to send a prescription
for any child when a mother requests one. The emphisis is on safety of
milk from donor banks not treatment. It is used as a treatment in most
cases, but has to be safe in all cases.
We send milk all over the United States and receive donors from all over
the United States as well. If we don't have enough milk for a sick child
and an adoptive parent needs milk we do prioritize. We will seek milk
from another milk bank if we need to to make sure any requests are
filled. We try very hard to meet all requests for milk.
Hope this has helped.
Darlene Breed, BSN, RN, IBCLC
Milk Bank & Breastfeeding Center
Worcester, MA (USA)
On Sat, 30 Oct 1999 18:27:57 EDT [log in to unmask] writes:
>Mary Rose's gracious and interesting letter to Anna has me thinking
>about how
>it is most appropriate for us to think about donor milk.
>
>I was really struck by her emphasis on it as a *treatment,* rather
>than as
>nutrition. This stuff is going to compromised babies or to others
>who have
>some specific *medical* need for it. You get it by prescription.
>
>Now, I have been assiduously training myself (spurred mostly by the
>cheerful
>pugnacity of our own carol brussel) to think that in a perfect world
>ANY baby
>who wasn't getting her own mom's best, either warm from the tap or
>refrozen,
>for whatever reason would get the WHO #3 standard -- that is, donor
>human
>milk. That implies that, say, adopted kids (pace relactation etc)
>should
>in some sense "really" be getting donor milk as their full-time
>nutrition up
>to 6 mos, with gradually decreasing quantities of it up through two or
>three
>or four years of age, just like every other kid. Not so?
>
>And yet Mary Rose's points about disease, persuasion of medical
>establishment, etc, are all extremely valid, or at least they sure
>sound that
>way off the top of my head.
>
>Is this just "real world versus ideal world"? Or are we gradually
>moving to
>a different philosophy of milk banking and infant nutrition? Or what?
> If
>any of you who have spent so much time thinking about the milk banks
>you work
>with (Barbara? Carol? Darlene? Nancy?) could share your thoughts I
>think
>it would be valuable.
>
>I live in New York City, a metropolis with no milk bank, for shame.
>So I
>take every opportunity to goad my pediatricians, midwives, neos, etc
>about
>this topic. And if I can do that a little more intelligently, it
>would
>probably be better for the world.
>
>Thanks --
>
>Elisheva Urbas
>slowly acquiring bf wisdom, but not credentials of any kind, in New
>York
>
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