Heather,

I just wanted to encourage you in what must be a difficult situation with
your child.
In fact from a paper I was reading recently, more donor milk from milk banks
goes to older children than to young babies. I am sure that the milk banks
would have case studies available that you could provide to your HCPs.
Your nutritionist and paediatrician obviously have heard that breastmilk
composition changes over time but clearly do not have a clue how it changes.
This is unfortunately not all that uncommon and adoptive mothers are
reguarly told that their milk will not be any good for their adopted
children (even by LCs). It's root is in prejudice, pure and simple. In your
case, I would guess that the health care professionals you are dealing with
don't think that a 27 month old should be breastfeeding anyway and this
underpins their assumptions. If it were me, I would give them case studies
but then ask them to provide infomration on just how breastmilk changes over
a lactation and just why those changes would make milk made by a mother of a
younger child unsuitable for your child. Generalisations are not good
enough!! They are the "experts" giving you information, they need to provide
you with detailed, accurate information (ie info on how each component
changes). They will find this difficult to do but the onus is on them to do
this. You can say that you don't believe that what they have said is correct
but you are open to changing your mind, you have provided case studies, the
rest is up to them.
Actually, though the number of studies that look at milk composition is
legion I don't believe that it has been examined whether milk compsition is
affected by breast pumping..... It is possible that this may have an affect.
Who knows what it might be.
Karleen Gribble
Australia

>        Here is our current situation. The nutritionist involved just did a
> new evaluation. First off, she told us the breastmilk is useless because
it is
> from mothers of infants and therefore has little to no benefit for our 27
month
> old. We explained that we realize she needs other foods at this point but
> that the breastmilk is still beneficial so we use it as a solvent for the
formula
> instead of water. She understood this but seemed unimpressed by any
continued
> benefits of banked breastmilk.
>        We would like to continue with some of the banked breastmilk for
bolus
> feeds during the day. I will continue to mix it in to her food anyway.
> However, both the nutritionist and the pediatrician say there is no
benefits for her
> because the milk expressed by the donor moms is "infant milk." I say if it
> can benefit adults how can it not be helpful to my genetically challenged
27
> month old? I would love to have some evidence to back this up. Can anyone
refer
> me to something helpful?

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