Hi all! I received a call this morning from a mom who I had helped immediatly postpartum 4 months ago. She is still nursing and everything is going well except that the baby did have a mild case of RSV (I believe that translates roughly to Respiratory Syncocal Virus). She was calling about a friend who was given a relative's baby 3 months ago. Baby was abandoned at birth by its mother and never fed human milk. It seems that this baby now has a rather severe case of RSV. In the hospital the other night one of the physicians asked if the baby had ever been breastfed. When told no, the Dr. lamented that the baby probably would not have been as sick if he had ever been breastfed. The mom who was nursing wanted to know if it would be ok if she gave some of her milk to this sick baby so that he could recover faster. I told her if she did do this, first, she should not put the baby to her breast, she should pump her milk so that the sick baby could not infect her or her baby. Next, she would need to be tested for communicable diseases including HIV, CMV, & Hepatitis. Also, she needed to be healthy, no illness or disease and taking no medication. I then referred her to a milk bank in the next state for additional information. Two questions: 1) Did I miss anything on the list of cautions? 2) If the milk were to be pasteurized to reduce the risk of contamination, would that reduce the antiviral properties of the milk? Linda Pohl, IBCLC Phoenix, Arizona USA [log in to unmask]