The Story of our First Table

Wednesday, 1/30/2019

Upon entering Mothers’ Milk Bank of North Texas, the metal table in the breastfeeding consultation room doesn’t look too special. It lines one of the room’s walls and holds some of our lactation consultant’s supplies. What you can’t see, though, is that it also holds the story of the milk bank’s humble beginnings.

In 2004, MMBNT opened in a suite of offices located in Fort Worth’s Child Study Center. The lab in our first home was small but mighty, dispensing 4,155 ounces of donor milk in that first year. Every one of those ounces was processed on a single table - the same table that is now in the consultation room.

MMBNT’s founders gathered furniture for the milk bank from discount stores and resale events. They found the lab table at Cook Children’s Medical Center, where it was located in their food services department. As the Cook staff upgraded their furniture and supplies, MMBNT gladly took this table off their hands.

The table’s purpose changed as the milk bank grew. It started as the sole processing table in the lab, then spent several years holding pasteurizers in the lab at our second location on Magnolia Avenue. Now that MMBNT is settled into its new facility, the lab has upgraded and the table yet again needed a new home. It found the perfect place in our consultation room. Our Education and Enrichment Manager, Amanda, is also our staff lactation consultant and she plans to use the table for a baby scale, work space and some storage.

This is the first time MMBNT has had a space dedicated to lactation consultation, and the staff is thrilled to offer this service to mothers and babies who pass through our doors. It’s only fitting to furnish this new room with something from our early days, reminding us all of where we came from.