I am in the minority. Milk donation is something that I've always been aware of. When my mom had her fifth and sixth child (I'm the eighth out of nine), she was asked to donate breastmilk to the Red Cross, who handled it at the time. I'm not sure if they still manage a milk bank, but over 35 years ago, they did. My mom would hand express milk into a bottle because the pumps at the time had a tiny collection container for expressed milk that then would have to be transferred to the bottle. In order to use the pump and associated collection container, you'd be constantly filling it up and transferring milk, then connecting all the parts again and starting pumping again. My mom opted to hand express because she also said that she was able to get more out than the manual pump that was available back then. The Red Cross would bring my mom empty bottles and collect the full ones. It was like the milk man, back in the day, only opposite, my mom explained to me.
Milk donation has come a long way in the past 30+ years. Today, the milk bank doesn't do the recruiting. This isn't any fault of the milk bank, it's just the way it works. With my first, even though I knew about donating milk, it wasn't something I thought about. I even had a pump that I used from time to time to build up a stash of frozen milk "just in case" but that was it's sole purpose. As back up. I didn't realize it at the time, but I had many indicators of oversupply and could have donated at the time. When I became pregnant with my second, I decided that since I was able to pump so easily with my first, I could donate the second time around. It was also in discussions and preparations for my second son that I realized I had oversupply with the first and was told by a lactation consultant that it was likely to be worse the second time around. Fortunately I had already started my research on the donation process.
This is what the process entailed for me. First, I had to locate a local milk bank. The closest one to me is about three hours away. Fortunately, they have a few drop off sites that are a bit closer to me. In order to start donating, I had to have a baby that was under a year and at least two weeks old. They want to make sure you established breastfeeding successfully. I then had to contact the milk bank with my information. They sent me a packet with a questionnaire to fill out. Once I returned that form, they contacted my doctor and my baby's pediatrician (with my approval) to ensure they had on record that both of us were healthy. I then went to a lab selected by the milk bank to have some bloodwork run to ensure I didn't have communicable diseases that might pose a risk. I then was able to pick up bottles from the milk banks drop off location (the lactation center at a local hospital) and I was ready to go. Despite starting the process when my newborn was about two weeks old, it took about six weeks to complete the process so that by the time I started donating, my baby was about two months old. Now, some of it was due to losing my packet in the mail, but the process still takes a bit of time.
I'm convinced that one of the reasons donating isn't very common (the milk bank I donate to had 250 donors in 2011, most of which only gave one time) is because moms have to seek out the milk banks rather than seeing pamphlets or advertising and because the process takes dedication and discipline. It's not super easy to add into your schedule. Pamphlets are available, but since many milk banks are non-profit, they don't have the funds to run major advertising campaigns. That's just the way it is. Another reason is that people just don't know it can be done or have never heard of it. There are 11 milk banks in the US and Canada associated with the Human Milk Banking Association of North America (HMBANA), and several other for-profit milk banks as well. That's not a lot for 50 states and 10 provinces (not to mention, they also work with Mexico, but there are currently no HMBANA milk banks there). There is a HUGE need for donors.
To see if there is a local milk bank near you, check out the Human Milk Banking Association of North America to see how you can help.
No comments:
Post a Comment