Dear Colleagues:

There are hospitals in the US where mothers are permitted to give human milk
from others to their own babies. Staff from those hospitals were in the
audience of a conference I attended, and spoke about it. That's their
policy. Institutions need policies, to both serve their clients and to
protect themselves.

As women can rent their uterus to gestate someone else's zygote, I see using
the milk from another mother as a viable option as long as the mother of the
baby is informed about potential risk. Ruth Lawrence's book suggests that
the donor mother be tested for various diseases by history and by serology,
and that the arrangement be made by the baby's mother (and family), not
suggested by any medical staff.

Personally, I would do anything possible to feed human milk to any baby I
loved, rather than use formula. That's my bias.

warmly,

>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date:    Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:54:08 -0500
> From:    Rachael Austin <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: donor milk question
>
> Can I have some clarification of an issue regarding donar milk please from
> the wise women (and men!) on this list?
>
> A midwife friend of mine transferred a homebirthed baby into the SCN. The
> baby required additional milk to what the mother could supply. Another
> homebirth mother who birthed the same day, donated her EBM for the SNC
> baby.
> While the mothers didn't know each other directly, they knew of each other,
> having shared the same midwife. The SCN mother had seen recent blood tests
> of the donor mother so she knew the milk was "clean" and made an informed
> decision to give it to her baby over an artificial baby milk.
>
> The nursery staff have issues with this.
>
> My question is, are there issues justified in any way? The donar milk was
> not pasturised and the unit doesn't have a policy on donar EBM as they do
> not have a milk bank in the district. I would assume that the informed
> decision of the mother to give donar milk would be her decision alone to
> make,

regardless of hospital protocol i.e the right to refuse.
>
> Can anyone share any thoughts on this?
>
> Blessings,
> Rachael=20
>
>             ***********************************************
>

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