A young couple came to my breastfeeding class during pregnancy and became quite enthusiastic about the power of breastmilk. Unfortunately, the mother died on the third day postpartum. The father wishes his child to be provided breastmilk (and why should he settle for less?). Unfortunately, he cannot afford to purchase milk from San Jose Human Milk Bank and insurance will not cover (California Blue Cross). He has appealed the decision and has had his appeal rejected once. He intends to appeal again, but would like to strengthen his appeal. The medical indications do not show a clear risk to life of depriving this infant of human milk. However, the paternal grandfather does have insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and received a simultaneous pancreas/kidney transplant, and the infant's father has eczema (but not asthma). The infant has no siblings, and so there is no sibling history to examine. There is a cousin with asthma. I am asking for any successful wording for claims for human milk. Also, would anyone who works or volunteers for any of the human milk banks or the North American Human Milk Banking Association care to offer their thoughts or suggestions? Otherwise, he intends to do his own screening and milk treatment from donors in his own home in his off-work hours. (Are there any "off-work hours" for a single parent of a newborn?) Naturally, his two primary concerns are potential exposure to drugs and transmission of illness; however, with careful screening and handling, he feels the risks are lower than in providing artificial baby milk. He has called me and asked me to provide him with: a) the best approach to getting banked human milk b) a screening tool for his own donors c) instructions for home heat treatment d) instructions for sending the milk to be tested to determine whether his methods are successfully eliminating [in reality, reducing] the risks of drug and viral/bacterial contamination Arly Helm, MS, IBCLC *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html