Our area is two steps closer to a longterm dream of mine.

There are a lot of hospital-born babies who need a few ounces of milk to
get started, but they need it before mom is able to express it in adequate
quantities.  The baby ends up exposed to formula for a day or so, then goes
on to exclusive breastfeeding.  But he's had that early formula exposure.
What a pity.

When I asked Lois Arnold about setting up a local milk bank to provide for
those early-days babies, she said it was a lot simpler just to buy milk
bank milk and store it on-site.  I finally approached our local hospital
about it, and they like the idea, at least at this stage.  They, too, have
been bothered by this early and brief exposure to formula, but their
questions made me realize they knew nothing about banked milk.

That's part one.  Part two is that our coalition was planning to help buy a
freezer or help buy the initial 100 oz or whatever we could manage.  But I
have a client who has kept her baby exclusively breastmilk fed for 10 weeks
(fresh milk) while her own supply has gone from 0 to something over half
her baby's needs.  She and her husband would like to do something to repay
the women who have so generously pumped for her.  I suggested helping to
finance on-site storage of banked milk at the hospital, with maybe a plaque
on the freezer listing the names of their baby's donors.

They like it!  I'll keep you posted...

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL  Ithaca, NY