Wasting breast milk should be a crime punishable by the Iron Maiden. Breast Milk is the most amazing liquid on the planet. It hydrates, it nourishes, it heals, it comforts, it is pure awesomesauce.
So when I decided to leave my son with his father while I attended BlogHer ’11 in San Diego I was immediately hit with the prospect of pumping milk for 4 days. My first thought would be to bring it home with me because simply dumping it was out of the question! Then I realized what an ordeal that would be. Even if I somehow procured Dry Ice to pack it into a cooler for the 8+ hour trip home I would face the TSA. Would I get an educated agent who understood how to handle breastmilk? Or an agent who demanded I taste my milk or scan it in an X Ray machine?
Then it hit me: Donate it! Yes! I would find a mother local to San Diego who had a baby in need of breast milk. Even if I only had 50 ounces isn’t that something? Of course it is! And lightning struck again when I decided to blog about my donation plans to enlist other lactating mothers! It was brilliant (in my humble opinion.)
For any of you unaware, there are various ways a person can donate breast milk.
One would be donating to a Milk Bank. A Milk Bank would screen the donor through blood tests and the milk is then pasterurized or otherwise turned into other forms of milk for babies. Even though donors are not getting paid for the milk the banks do charge a (hefty) price for human milk. A great read regarding Milk Banks and the human milk business is on JWOC {Swindled: The Ugly Side of Milk Donation} I would recommend reading this if you are considering donating to a Milk Bank in order to be informed about what happens to your milk in many cases.
Peer Milk Sharing involves direct person to person donations. Utilizing online or in person connections women can donate milk to one another for various reasons. It is really up to the donor and recipient to be honest and up front regarding health concerns or medications being taken. Reasons for peer milk donations range from intolerance to formula, adoptive parents, and help for cancer patients.
I knew a Peer to Peer Milk Share would be the best in my situation. I was staying at a hotel so I would need to the recipient to pick up the milk. I chose Eats on Feets and after a quick search, found their Facebook Page for Southern California. After posting my plans on the page I quickly got an email from a mother who needed the milk. Her son had been tongue tied and he was clipped but she pumped and was having supply issues. The baby wasn’t doing well on formula and tolerated breast milk much better.
I responded that I would at least have my own milk but potentially the milk from a few other moms.
Word spread through the internet about my plan. I had comments on my blog post, tweets from other attendees, and emails asking to be involved. Another mom created a Facebook Group for moms pumping at BlogHer (regardless of donating) and we kept in touch in this way.
At BlogHer I found even more moms! Purely by coincidence I chatted with a mother at a party who was pumping and boy am I glad I did! Molly of Milwaukee Mamas.com turned out to be our biggest “producer” and needs an award for her amazing supply! Her milk was a large percentage of the total we donated! Other attendees also spread the word in person.
I want to send a HUGE THANK YOU to all of the moms who donated. We had 1 time pumpers who were away from older nurslings and others like myself who had babies under a year old and lots of milk was still flowing! 1 oz or 100 ounces, these women took time to save their milk instead of the easy path of dumping it down the drain. They have my gratitude!
In no particular order here are the moms I know who donated:
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Dagmar of DagmarBleasedale.com
Emily of BabyDickey.com
Kylee of TwoPretzels.com
Molly of MilwaukeeMamas.com
Laura of GreekMomma.com
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Jen of LifewithLevi.com
Kristen of CoolMomPicks.com
Jill of BabyRabies.com
Suzanne of Bebehblog.com
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Elizabeth of MeasaMommy.com
Christa of LittleBCBG.com
Molly of MilwaukeeMamas.com
Jessica of MomEinstein.com
[/threecol_one_last]And One Employee of the Convention Center handed me a bag too (and was asked of any meds/etc first of course)[/box]
That is a grand total of 14 (including myself)
All I can say is Wow. I have tears in my eyes just typing out the list of Moms involved. I am so amazed at the hugeness of this donation, the willingness of so many women to donate, and the overall positive outcome. Most people don’t even know that breast milk donation is an option, so to have so many involved is truly amazing and such a testament to the caliber of women who attend BlogHer!
In order to collect every possible drop of breastmilk I was able to wrangle Jill (Baby Rabies) to meet up with our milk recipient on Sunday morning. I had to leave our hotel at 4:15 am so having anyone meet that early would have been crazy. Instead, I collected as much milk as possible the night before (and ran back and forth from the North and South Towers of the hotel about 5 times!) then dropped it off to Jill at 12:30 am (after I pumped for the last time) where her fridge was already stocked with milk. I have a feeling our baby recipient is going to gain a few pounds- let’s just say that Jill and Suzanne both make milk with extra cream! It resembled yogurt- no lie! And in case you are curious, we all wrote our names on our own bags of milk. If Sam shows any sort of negative reaction to the milk hopefully it will be possible to trace to one mother and they can discontinue using those bags.
Jill met with Jen (Life with Levi) in the morning for her milk and the milk we pumped at the party. They delivered the milk to our mom (I hate that I couldn’t be there myself but getting more milk was more important!) on Sunday morning and it all went smoothly. I am so relieved!
In total we had 70 bags of milk. Most had 4 ounces (or more) in each bag. My guess is we had 350 ounces at least but to be safe let’s say 300 ounces were donated.
300 Ounces.
Suddenly, the inconvenience of pumping was replaced with a warm fuzzy feeling. Sam, our little donor baby, has been drinking the breastmilk and Mom says his tummy is already acting better compared to the formula. Luckily they had lots of room in the freezer!
So next year, New York City, if you are going to be pumping at BlogHer ’12, just let me know! We’ll be doing the same through Eats on Feets in August 2012. I may not be breastfeeding by then (who knows) but I will be happy to coordinate another BlogHer Breast Milk Donation.
Anyone can donate breastmilk at any time! If you have a freezer overflowing with milk, or have an oversupply, or just want to donate, locate an Eats on Feets or Human Milk for Human Babies Chapter in your area!
