Just to add my tuppence worth here to Karleen's prescience, and with 
respect to Diane, ask people to Watch Their Langauge.

Those of us in the lactation community who disagree with mothers taking 
control of their own milk supply, are using very specific language..

The Risks of Informal Milk Sharing.. casual milk sharing... unprocessed 
milk sharing... all of which are misnomers.

What is being discussed by the mothers taking control, is the difference 
between Informed, and Uninformed, Milk Sharing.

"Informal" milk sharing is being used to suggest no discipline, 
methodology or information about milk sharing.  It conjures up the Hoary 
Old Spectre of the slack alice mother, going on ebay to buy a shed load 
of human milk, from the woman keeping her breast pump in the dog 
basket.  The crack whore is also selling her milk, when discussing 
"Informal Milk Sharing."  said crack whore has just come from her HIV 
treatment centre (which is a problem actually, as she'll be on ARVs, but 
let's not muddy the analogy with science!)  That woman down the end of 
the street with a fur coat and no knickers is involved in informal milk 
sharing, and she's giving it to the daft woman at No 6, who buys stuff 
from Internet channels as well.

However, when discussing Informed Milk Sharing, mothers are engaged in a 
discourse with each other, and the science and research, on which is the 
greater risk to their baby - donated human milk, or formula.  They are 
discussing screening options, and processing options.  They are 
scrutinising blood readouts and health check information.  They are 
deciding how to mitgate risks, so they are less than those of feeding 
formula.

The removal of this aspect of the discussion, on various forums and 
posts, is very troubling to me.  The various milk sharing sites make 
information known to all women, of the spectra of risks that can exist 
in milk sharing.  And most provide resources on how to mediate, or 
mitigate, them.

To deny that element to the discussions, is to do a great disservice to 
everyone.

So please, can we stop with the 'Informal Milk Sharing' and be 
specific.  You may as well just go straight to Icky Milk Sharing.

You may disagree with mothers making informed decisions on milk.  You 
may think it's a terrible idea.  You may genunely believe that no mother 
can mitigate the risks.  But to present the concept as having no 
discussion at all of the risks, is disengenous at best, and dishonest at 
worst.

Mothers can undertake discussions about risk: let's not rob them of 
that, no matter how we feel about Informed versus Uninformed, milk sharing.

Informed Milk Sharing is the activity under discussion.

Morgan Gallagher

(having a day of rants.)  :-p



On 29/11/2010 09:50, Karleen Gribble wrote:
> A milk banking person saying how dirty and dangerous informal milk sharing
> is.... sigh...Jack Newman is quoted with similar sentiments in the same
> article. Very unhelpful and fits right in with the pervasive viewpoint that
> breastfeeding and breastmilk is icky, dangerous stuff that should be kept
> hidden- part of the reason why breastfeeding in public is so unacceptable
> and why working mums get such grief about their expressed breastmilk from
> their colleagues and from the carers of their infants. Shame! Shame!
> Karleen Gribble
> Australia
>
> http://www.thestar.com/living/article/898077--breast-milk-banks-latch-on-to-
> social-media
>
> However, the society does not endorse informal milk sharing. "I think it's
> dangerous," says Dr. Sharon Unger, a neonatologist at Mount Sinai Hospital.
> "I completely understand why women do it, but you really don't know what
> you're getting . . . it's very unsafe."
>
> Unger is spearheading an initiative to set up a Toronto milk bank, but says
> it's still a few years away - pending more research and funding - and will
> initially make sick babies its priority.
>
>
>
>
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