A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Milk Bank...

This is a wonderful article, written by an amazing woman whom I'm lucky to call "friend".

Enjoy!

A funny thing happened on the way to the milk bank...

By Jodine Chase

Six months ago today on October 27, 2010, a Facebook status update flashed across my computer screen, burning just a little brighter than most. I must see hundreds of Facebook status updates and Twitter messages and email subject lines over the course of a day.

This one, I remembered.

"Human milk sharing, woman-to-woman, goes global" was the title, from Emma Kwasnica's Informed Choice: Birth and Beyond Facebook group. I remember a mental "hmmm" as it slipped on past.

I remember thinking, "it's about time somebody took charge of this and put access to mother's milk in the hands of  the mothers!"

The notion of re-establishing the mother's milk bank in my city was starting to feel very remote after years of effort with little result. It's been 25 years since we had a milk bank here in Edmonton. This Facebook milk sharing page idea seemed so simple, so easy. Just let mothers connect with each other. Let them decide how to screen and whether or not to pasteurize. To heck with jumping through hoops and getting the doctors and the medical professionals on side - just let the moms do it.

Within hours I noticed it had increased from one message to a buzz on my Facebook - people were talking about this, sharing news of the birth of this global milk-sharing network.  Every few hours I'd see another message, status update, post talking about Emma's global milk sharing network idea. It was starting to have a "tipping point" feel about it.

A few days later I met a longtime breastfeeding advocate at a coffee shop - and there she was, talking about this milk sharing idea on Facebook. It had moved from Facebook to face-to-face. Within a few days a local community page was set up, the sure enough, there they were, all the usual suspects, people who have been passionate about the need for a milk bank here, active on the page, offering their time as admins. 

It's six months later. I've seen many matches happen. We've had people post about life and death, "I-have-no-milk-and-this-baby-won't-tolerate-anything-else" needs, and ordinary, "I-just-need-milk-for-a-few-days-until-I-get-over-the-flu-and-rebuild-my-supply" needs. Mothers of preemies with overflowing freezers have donated. Matches have been made where women ship milk via Greyhound and Purolator. We've also had women who have received milk from their next-door-neighbours. Literally, their next-door neighbours.

There's been local news coverage and global media attention. Our federal health department issued a precautionary statement. A paediatrician working to establish a milk bank in Toronto was called upon to explain this upstart global Facebook milk sharing phenomena at the US FDA's day-long milk bank meeting in Washington, D.C. 

Hollywood movie stars talked about donating extra milk stored in their freezers for babies in need, and stars with adopted babies like Neil Patrick Harris and Elton John talked about sourcing human milk on talk shows and in magazine interviews.

I'm not going to pretend it's mainstream. But in the last few months friends and acquaintances and relatives have come up to me in person, or engaged me in chat on FB and shared with me their own stories of wet-nursing, milk sharing, tribe nursing. Stories I'd never heard before. About the time they were sick and a neighbour brought over breastmilk. About the day they had to go to the hospital and a friend wet-nursed their baby. About their own freezer stashes and how they came forward to help women and babies in need. Women younger than me have spoken about doctors asking them to bring milk into hospitals for babies who aren't thriving. Women have said, matter-of-fact, "oh, my sister and I nursed each other's babies all the time.

These women are talking about it now because it feels safe  to talk about it. It doesn't feel icky or taboo anymore. It doesn't feel as if no-one else will understand - now when there's people talking about this global milk sharing network right on your Facebook. Your sister is doing it, your daughter is doing it, and you find out about it because she talks about it on Facebook. It MUST be "normal." That's the real power, I think, of this global milk sharing network on Facebook - the power to bring all these stories out of the closet.

Emma Kwasnica, six months ago today you put out your call. You asked mothers to organize themselves on Facebook to create a women-to-women milk sharing network. And they have. Today Human Milk 4 Human Babies is a global milk sharing network with almost 300 administrators, 125 community pages in almost 50 countries around the world.

There has been a seismic shift in attitudes about human milk and there is no going back from that. Authorities are concerned about safety and are scrambling for alternatives including improving access to human milk through "official channels."

Will there be more milk banks because of this global milk sharing movement?

I hope so.

But with mothers sharing milk openly and freely, connecting via Facebook and using other social media tools, will milk banks even be needed? I almost hope...not.

Front page of the Toronto Star this morning, "Donor Breast Milk is Greatest Gift for Sick Babies" http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/babiespregnancy/babies/breastfeeding/article/896373--donor-breast-milk-is-greatest-gift-for-sick-babies

Infant Formula: It's not "Good Enough"

Before the  formula lynch mob hangs me for the following comment, I just want to say something:  This is not about guilt.  This is not about trying to make mothers who've used formula feel guilty.  If you want to debate the "Guilt Issue" go read my article "Breastfeeding: guilt, statistics, support, and making a choice"   and then we'll talk.  This is not about feeling guilty for using infant formula. This is about not having to "choose" to use infant formula. This is about actually having a choice and making the best choice for your baby and your family.

When breastfeeding is difficult, or when it goes terribly wrong, it can be absolutely devastating for mother and baby.  Mothers who have done their research and made the choice to exclusively breastfeed their babies already know that "breast is best", they know that breastfeeding is NORMAL.  More importantly they know about the risks associated with feeding your baby infant formulas. So when nature throws moms a curve and forces them to have to rely on something other than their own breasts to nourish their child, it can be completely overwhelming.

The first thing moms need to do is to get professional help.  See a certified  Lactation Consultant/IBCLC to try to work through the problem:  Is it a poor latch?  Why is baby's latch not good enough?  Is baby tongue tied?  Does mother simply need help with positioning?  For most situations if you fix the latch you fix the supply problems.

But what if the problem isn't so easily fixed?  What if the problem is one that is unfixable?  What then?  Babies need to be fed and when the mother is not able to produce enough milk to exclusively breastfeed, then they have to turn to another source of nutrition. Up until the last 60 or 70 years, the natural thing to do would be to use donor milk or a wet nurse- whether it was your sister, cousin, aunt, mother, friend or another local mother who was already breastfeeding her own baby.  Mother to Mother milk sharing and tribal nursing was so common that is was the accepted method of feeding babies who needed milk.

Now of course we are living in the era of commercially prepared infant formulas.  "Wet nursing" is a word that's fallen out of fashion and tribal nursing, if done at all, is done behind closed doors.  Now if a mother is unable to produce enough breastmilk the medical machine automatically hands her a can of formula and sends her on her way. WHY? Why formula instead of donated breastmilk?  Because infant formula is a huge industry and pays out millions of dollars in advertising and promotions, sponsors medical associations and medical schools, buys doctors fancy briefcases and sports cars, sends hospital executives on Caribbean cruises and gives maternity wards thousands of cans of their product to use and give away.  Money talks, and "Breastmilk" doesn't have any executives to pay off government officials to use their products.

Up until the 1980's there were breastmilk banks scattered all over North America to facilitate the feeding of preterm and fragile infants in hospital NICUs.  Then came the AIDs scare and the vast majority of milk banks closed their doors- leaving just 10 banks in the US and one lonely milk bank in Canada. I plan on doing some investigating into the closure of these milk banks because I'm a firm believer that money talks and if doors were closed, then someone somewhere told them to close and paid for them to stay that way. There is only one industry that stood to gain anything from the closure of breastmilk banks.  Call me a conspiracy theorist, but if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I'm going to call it a duck.

Recently the Canadian (and US) governments have been talking about the need for Breastmilk Banks, about how vitally necessary breastmilk is to our most fragile citizens.  Dr. Sharon Unger was quoted in The Toronto Star in November as saying:

“We’ve long, long, long wanted a milk bank in Ontario,” says Dr. Sharon Unger, a Mount Sinai neonatologist.
“Our hope is that we would supply milk to all of Ontario, so we’d have depot sites or collection sites throughout the province and we’d be a central processing plant,” says Unger, who is medical director of Toronto’s Milk Bank Initiative.
The group is currently in negotiations with the provincial health ministry to fund the project. Unger says a final price tag has not been determined, but that it would be a multi-million-dollar venture.
“It does of course cost more to process human milk than cow’s milk,” she says.

...and as I said at the time:

Applause, yes applause.  It's a wonderful thing that the media has jumped on the band wagon and is making public announcements like this, I mean,  any publicity is good publicity KWIM? Horray for Breastmilk!
But I have to admit that it irks me.  Mothers and Doctors, like Dr. Jack Newman, have been crying out for Milk Banks for Years- YEARS!!!! Not only that, but Canada does have a Milk Bank in Vancouver BC... a milk bank that they have been trying to close down for years!!  I wrote an article on the topic just a couple of months ago: Canada Needs Milk Banks!!!

And I still agree, We NEED milk banks!!!  But you know what? If we wait around for the government to get off their bureaucratic asses to build even ONE milk bank.... I'll probably already be a grandmother!!!  And when we get milk banks, will they help the babies that are healthy but need milk?  Will they give milk to mothers with low supply?  Adoptive mothers?  Mothers with babies that have special needs like Anaya? NO, they won't.

So we return to the original topic:  What if the mother isn't able to exclusively breastfeed?  What if she has low supply? What if the problem isn't so easily fixed?  What if the problem is one that is unfixable?  What then? Up until recently your only choice would of been feeding your baby infant formula.  Not much of a choice is it?

Now  you can choose to feed your baby donated human milk.  Mothers have had enough of waiting for the bureaucrats and money grubbers to build milk banks.  Now mothers have taken back their autonomy and are supporting other women and families.  Milk Sharing is the wave of the future.  Milk sharing is making a difference and helping families and babies.  And Human Milk 4 Human Babies is leading the way!!!

Here is another amazing story of one mothers struggle to breastfeed her baby and how milk sharing made a huge difference in her life!!!




Ruby's  Story
By Kim Parent

"I can’t remember when I made the decision to breastfeed my daughter – I just know that not breastfeeding never occurred to me. There were many compelling reasons to nurse, including cost, health benefits, and convenience. My partner and I collected books about breastfeeding during pregnancy and we educated ourselves about the subject. I learned what myths and traps to look out for, and prepared myself to stand up against the well-meaning medical staff who might want to supplement my baby with formula. Fortunately I had a trouble-free birthing experience.

However, within the first week it became obvious that something wasn’t right. Ruby would not keep her latch for more than a minute or two. She would unlatch, crying and screaming, over and over again. After several tearful days, we called an IBCLC. She was finally able to tell me why my daughter was so upset: I have breast hypoplasia, also known as IGT (insufficient glandular tissue). Hypoplastic breasts never fully develop, and they lack an adequate amount of milk-producing mammary glands. I was heartbroken.

My lactation consultant wrote a plan of action that would hopefully allow me to increase my supply while supplementing my daughter. With great effort, I was able to approximately double my milk production, to a maximum of a few ounces per day - not nearly enough to meet Ruby’s needs. We were supplementing with approximately 20 ounces of formula per day. We were not prepared to accept that formula was “good enough”,  being fully aware of the risks associated with artificial feeding. We could see that her little body was having trouble digesting the formula. She was very constipated, and she would scream and cry for hours. We tried many different brands, but her symptoms were always the same. I turned to my lactation consultant for advice on donated breast milk.

In all of Canada, there is only one milk bank, located in Vancouver, BC. Currently they cannot keep up with the demands of their own NICU. Even if there was enough milk available, the cost can easily be prohibitive. At $1.25 per ounce (which is much less than the cost of banked milk in the U.S.), it would cost us at least $750 per month to feed Ruby exclusively breast milk.

For our family, the answer was informed, mother-to-mother milk donation, not unlike wet nursing. We found several online resources to facilitate this, including the Human Milk 4 Human Babies Global Network on Facebook. Thanks to fifteen generous women, my daughter has received thousands of ounces of breast milk. She has not had a drop of formula in over three months! She is a different baby now – no more colic, spitting up, or constipation. She is hitting all of her developmental milestones and is just a radiantly beautiful and happy little girl. I still grieve the exclusive breastfeeding relationship that I had planned to have with her. However, I finally feel confident that she is receiving the best nutrition that I can possibly provide for her. I am eternally grateful to the amazing families who have helped us and for the support I have received from those around me.

Ruby at 3 weeks old

Ruby at 3 weeks old - at this point she had been supplemented with formula for over 2 weeks

Ruby at 3 months

Ruby at 3 months old, exclusively breastfed!

At 6 months old- exclusively breastfed!

A beautiful healthy Ruby at 6 months old!!

Introducing "HM4HB", formerly Eats of Feets Global milk sharing network.

In a grand announcement  a few months ago, the Toronto Star published an article  "Pediatricians call for breast milk banks across Canada".  Applause, yes applause.  It's a wonderful thing that the media has jumped on the band wagon and is making public announcements like this, I mean,  any publicity is good publicity KWIM? Horray for Breastmilk!
But I have to admit that it irks me.  Mothers and Doctors, like Dr. Jack Newman, have been crying out for Milk Banks for Years- YEARS!!!! Not only that, but Canada does have a Milk Bank in Vancouver BC... a milk bank that they have been trying to close down for years!!  I wrote an article on the topic just a couple of months ago: Canada Needs Milk Banks!!!


 Yes, there is absolutely no doubt that Canada needs Milk Banks, and lots of them.  But if they are run like the BC Womens Hospital Milk Bank, keeping the liquid gold just for themselves, then how will that help babies in need in outlying communities?  And what about those "babies in need"?  The article in the Toronto Star yesterday states:

The milk, which would be pasteurized with the same heating method dairies use, would go mainly to two groups of infants, Unger says.
“There would be the really, really pre-term babies, the extremely low birth weight babies,” she says. “The other group of babies are the group who need surgery on their bowels.”

While no one would argue that these fragile infants desperately need breastmilk, ALL babies deserve breastmilk.  What about babies who's mothers are not physiologically capable of producing enough milk to exclusively breastfeeding their babies?  What about other fragile babies? What about older infants that are absolutely reliant on breastmilk to survive?  Infants like Anaya who are extremely ill and intolerant of ANYTHING except breastmilk?

ALL BABIES DESERVE BREASTMILK!


Breastfeeding is NOT best, Breastfeeding is Normal.  But what if you are one of the (Hypothesized) 3% of women who are physically unable to produce enough milk to exclusively nurse their babies?  What if you have done everything possible to build and boost your milk supply.... and you still can't produce enough milk to exclusively breastfeed your baby?  What then?
For many mothers they had only one option... until now.  NOW there is a global movement going on, a movement to get breastmilk to every baby in need through milk donations. It's called Milk Sharing.


Right here in Ontario there are currently no milk banks. So for a baby to receive breastmilk, the only way is from their mother, or through donations from other breastfeeding mothers. Hence the launch of  "Human Milk 4 Human Babies". We are here to help families that need milk, find families that are willing to donate milk.


Originally we started a global breastmilk sharing network called "Eats on Feets Global" back in Oct 2010.  Breastfeeding and childbirth activist Emma Kwasnica decided to launch a global network to help mothers who needed breastmilk find mothers who had breastmilk to spare.  In the summer of 2010 a Phoenix based midwife Shell Walker started a  local community page on Facebook dedicated to milk sharing. Emma, an advocate for informed choice, who was already connecting people around the globe who wanted to share milk via her personal profile page, approached Shell and asked to use her name "Eats on Feets" for the Global milk sharing network. Permission was granted by Shell  and Emma launched Eats On Feets GLOBAL. This network grew quickly to over 100 communities spanning the globe. 

Last week Eats On Feets GLOBAL changed its name to Human Milk 4 Human Babies Global Network. Within hours, donors and recipients were making matches on HM4HB. There are now 275 volunteers administering over 100 community pages in 42 countries. Donors and recipients are using the network to make matches literally every hour of every day.  For more information about the changes to the Global networks name please click HERE


Milk Sharing is not a new fad.  Milk sharing is as old as the human race and is still practised in societies where breastfeeding is the social norm.  Mothers have been nursing other babies since the beginning of time and babies have thrived.  All across the world mothers are forming impromptu "villages", caring and nurturing their children together,  caring for and helping each other, and nursing each others babies in an effort to provide healthy human food in a nurturing manner when it's needed.


 Every baby deserves human milk, we can't state that enough.  Sometimes we need to all pull together to make sure that no baby is left behind. Cows milk for baby cows, Human milk for baby humans.  It's really that simple.


 If you are a mom with a baby in need of breastmilk come to Human Milk For Human Babies and you'll find moms with milk to give.  If you're a mom that has breastmilk to give, come to HM4HB and you will find a mother in need of your generous donation.  It's all about getting Human Milk to Human Babies!!!

Canada Needs Milk Banks!!!

Our government likes to spout off that they are oh so supportive of breastfeeding and in some ways they are.  In Canada women can get a total of 12 months of maternity leave, our Rights to breastfeed in public is protected by law, and mothers are legally allowed to pump/nurse at work.  It all sounds so wonderful, yet the reality is that none of this type of so called "Breastfeeding Support" costs our  government a thing.  We pay into our EI (employment insurance) premiums- many of us for years and years. Upholding a womans  Right to breastfeed in public  also costs our government nothing.  So if our Government is soooooo supportive of breastfeeding, then where's the cash?

I've been ranting and talking about the lack of breastfeeding support in this country for several years.  Words are very pretty, and let's face it politicians seems to know all the pretty words, but words don't put breastmilk into little tummies!

Never mind the fact that there is no standardized training for medical personnel in Breastfeeding and lactation.
Never mind the fact that there is no government support to encourage hospitals to attain "Baby Friendly" status
Never mind the fact that the government quietly keeps cutting back and closing breastfeeding support systems/groups cross the country
Never mind the fact that the politicians are lying SOB's that would sell their own mother if they thought it would net them a profit  (opps!  did I say that out loud?)

Lets talk about milk banks.  Did you know that Canada has one lone milk bank (located in Vancouver BC)?  Did you know that they have closed it or attempted to close it down several times over the years due to funding cut backs and that the only reason it's still running is because every time they attempt to close it again, the public goes wild and organizes mass protests and gets the media involved?  Then as soon as it's all quiet.... they try to close it down again!!!  Did you know that the milk processed at the BC Womens Hospital Milk Bank is only used for patients of the hospital, and that any milk shipped elsewhere is sold to the recipient?

BC Women's Milk Bank
The BC Women’s Milk Bank has operated for over thirty years. It provides pasteurized donor milk to high risk and ill children when their mothers are not able to provide enough breast milk. The pasteurized donor milk is provided with a doctor’s or midwife’s prescription. A processing fee is charged for recipients outside of BC Children’s & BC Women’s Hospitals.

WOW!!!  isn't that supportive of our government? It's said that actions speak louder than words, so I'd say that all their pretty words don't mean jack shit when compared to their actions.

What would the reaction be if blood banks suddenly started selling the donated blood to people in desperate need?  I think that the media would have a heyday and that the government would be forced to step in and make sure that the DONATED blood was made available to ALL those in need of it.


To those in NEED.  Like those tiny preemie babies, those babies born with serious medical issues, and those babies born to mothers who cannot produce their own breastmilk- they NEED breastmilk. Women all around this country are asking where they can donate their milk, asking if there is anyone that needs the sometimes hundreds of ounces of breastmilk that they have pumped and saved. We are willing, we are able...... yet the government refuses to acknowledge the need or the necessity.  Sometimes the mothers of these babies are lucky and they have a support network in place that allows them to reach out to the breastfeeding community and accept private donations, but the reality for most mothers with infants in need is that they just have to make do with whatever is available through their hospital.  Babies that could of been saved if they'd been fed breastmilk die. Because our Government does not support breastfeeding... or at least they don't if it's going to cost them anything. 

Apparently the lives of this countries youngest citizens don't matter.