From Barbara Wilson Clay.

Dear Friends,
Someone posted to me the recent discussion on milk banks, that seems to
discourage milk donation and to suggest that milk banks are in some kind of
cahoots to sabotage breastfeeding.  All I can say is how sad.  Milk banks in
the US are working so hard to overcome the prejudice against using human
milk to feed medically fragile infants.  Thanks to many truly selfless
people, the non-profit milk banks are turning this opinion around.  I can
speak only for the Mothers Milk Bank at Austin.  Last year we dispensed over
143,000 oz of milk (that is 1,119 gallons!)  We shipped milk to 25 hospitals
in Texas, Ohio, Louisianna, Indiana, and Delaware, and to outpatient
recipients all over the US. As the neonatologists in hospts we have served
begin to see the outcomes of their preemies improve with donor milk feeds,
some of them have become interested in starting their own milk banks.  There
are several new banks coming on board this year and next.  A few years ago
there were only 4 or 5 milk banks in the whole country.  Now the trend is
very slowly reversing.  All these banks will need donors.  How awful if LCs
discourage this.  A further word about our bank in Austin: We turn no
medically fragile infant away, chosing, instead to engage in fund raising
efforts to make sure that uninsured and indigent babies are subsidized.  Our
"research" milk is typically offered to adults with serious medical
conditions, and has even been used to foster orphaned animals.  It is
shocking to me that there would be an effort to seek to discredit this work.

Barbara Wilson-Clay, BS, IBCLC
Austin Lactation Associates
LactNews Press
www.lactnews.com

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