A note to our readers: Mary's blog post was first featured on the Offbeat Families blog.
Thanks, Mary, for also sharing your story with us.
Mary
This is the story of how I, quite accidentally, became a milk donor after the birth of my second child. It has truly been one of the most gratifying experiences of my life. Because I have come to believe milk donation is so important, not only for the babies who receive the milk, but also for the mothers who give it, I decided to write this essay in part to help spread the word so that other women will consider donation, too.
I had my second child in June, and I pumped a little bit every morning and every evening from the very start just to keep my supply a bit high until we knew weight gain was good. (This is in part because of bad start with my first child.) Even after I cut out the evening pumping session and was only pumping around 10 minutes in the morning, I began to realize I was accumulating a lot of frozen milk, especially since I was not returning to outside-the-home work until my baby would be seven months old. I was going to have a major storage problem!
At the same time as I was reading about milk donation, a friend shared with me that a friend of hers had delivered a micro-preemie who was having some bad reactions to formula she was receiving in the NICU. I read the mother's blog and saw a post in which she expressed great sadness that she had not been able to pump enough milk for her baby. "I wish I could give her some of my milk," I thought. "It is just sitting there in the freezer."
So, inspired by her baby's fight, I looked into milk donation. I discovered that donor milk is really amazing medicine for tiny babies, in particularly helping them avoid necrotizing enterocolitis, which can be fatal to premature babies. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a revised position paper on Breastfeeding and the Use of Human Milk in 2012 and in the section on "Preterm Infants" states that the standard of care should be that premature babies received pasteurized donor human milk if their mothers are not able to pump sufficient milk for their needs.
I learned that there are two good ways in the United States to donate mother's milk: 1) informal donation locally through a group such as Eats on Feets or Human Milk 4 Human Babies, or 2) more formal donation to an official Mothers' Milk Bank certified by Human Milk Banking Association of North America (HMBANA). These are not-for-profit and they pasteurize the milk and mix it with other milk and then dispense it to hospitals (and occasionally babies at home) for babies with medical prescriptions. Although some of the properties are lost in the pasteurization process, the milk is still extremely helpful for the babies who receive it.
I decided, in part because it was a micro-preemie who inspired me to look into milk donation in the first place, that option two was the right option for me. I discovered that the HMBANA-affiliated Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas was closest to where I live, albeit several states away. The Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas requires a 100 ounce minimum donation (though this requirement is waived for bereaved mothers donating milk), whereas some other banks require a minimum of 150 or 200 ounces.
I contacted the Milk Bank and cleared an informal approval process. I planned to donate some of the milk I already had, but it turned out it was not eligible because I had taken ibuprofen after birth. Although ibuprofen in my milk was safe for my own healthy term infant, it was not considered healthy for a premature baby. So, I had to commit to pumping 100 new ounces to meet the minimum. I thought about it for a week while I kept pumping and then I decided to go for it. My body, with the help of the pump, was producing a few extra ounces of milk a day.
I soon cleared the formal approval process, which involved getting a blood test for hepatitis and HIV from Quest Diagnostics (with no charge to me), getting a note from my doctor that I was healthy enough to donate, getting a note from my baby's doctor that she was gaining weight well, and filling out a detailed questionnaire about my dietary habits, health history, and other matters.
The actual process of delivering the milk was a little stressful at first for me (though I think the process, which is very well-organized, works very easily for many women). The Milk Bank sends a special mailer to donors (and will fill it with special containers in which we can store our frozen milk so that we don't have to purchase storage bags) along with a prepaid FedEx mail bill. Once we are ready to make the shipment, we call FedEx to pick up the milk and ship it overnight express. We do have to purchase dry ice for the shipment ourselves, but we can receive either a donation receipt for a tax write-off or a reimbursal from the milk bank for the cost of the ice.
I am deeply proud of being a milk donor. In the end, I donated close to 500 ounces. Each ounce is three meals for a premature baby, and so that was 1500 meals!
The first time I scheduled a delivery, the FedEx agent gave me an eight-hour window, and he came at the exact worst possible time for me juggling a preschooler and a baby and I got very frazzled and struggled to get the box packed. In the end, I sent the FedEx agent on his way. From that point on, my husband drove the packages (I sent a total of four) to the FedEx office at our local airport and so I did not have to worry about a pick-up. The milk always arrived the next day and was pasteurized and delivered shortly thereafter to a baby in need.
I am deeply proud of being a milk donor. In the end, I donated close to 500 ounces. Each ounce is three meals for a premature baby, and so that was 1500 meals!
I also consider this to be something my daughter and I did together, and I cannot wait to tell her about it one day. My body produced milk for her, and I consider her to have shared that milk with other babies. Every morning, after my baby did her first nursing, I sat her down on a Boppy across from me in the floor and pumped 12 minutes, as I sang to her and told her stories about our family. As she grew older, I held objects for her and watched her learn to track with her eyes and to eventually grasp objects. She then began to try to roll and it got a bit trickier to keep her in place, and eventually, I put her in an Exersaucer right next to me as I pumped, but I still sang to her as I pumped. It was really special time for us.
I also consider my son and my husband to have helped donate milk, too. My son, who was already called upon to adapt to all the time I spent nursing the new baby, lost me for another 20 minutes each morning. And my husband played with him during that time each and every morning and also arranged his work schedule to allow him to deliver the milk to the airport.
Truthfully, we all, as a family, donated those 500 ounces and helped those babies.
Because I have a number of friends who have struggled mightily with milk supply, I know how sensitive milk supply can be and so I have told very few people that I was able to produce extra milk for donation. I am writing this essay, in fact, under a pseudonym, because I don't want to receive any kudos for what was really a minor commitment of time (especially considering how hard the babies who received the milk must fight, and how much agony their mothers often experience as they watch, wait, and only hold their babies with permission), or reinforce the disappointments some other women might have. I do hope, though, that this essay will help at least a few women understand more about milk donation and how easy it is so that they will also consider donating some of their precious liquid gold to babies desperately in need.