Share the Love! Or in this case, Milk!

An old friend with whom I used to have some crazy fun adventures pre-marriage, pre-kids while we were living in nyc, recently had her second little babe.  A super abundant milk maker, she had lots and lots and lots extra and contacted me about donating it.  I talked her through the pros and cons of donating to a milk bank (more on this below), and then mentioned milk sharing via Facebook.

My friend, went forward with the Facebook option and I gave her the names of two different milk sharing pages:  "Human Milk for Human Babies" and "Eats on Feets".  Sharing milk on these sites is free.  In fact it is illegal to sell your breast milk.  Instead, it's all about sharing the love (or in this case, milk)!

There may be more milk sharing resources out there, but I don't know of them yet.  If you do, please post in comments!  Both of these groups have a page for every state where milk sharing is happening.  My friend found the Human Milk for Human Babies page for Southern California where she lives, and proceeded to find a family in need of her milk.

I just received this message from her:

"Meagan, I thought I'd update you that I ended up finding a woman from Orange County on Human Milk 4 Human Babies.  She had triplets 6 weeks ago at 32 weeks. They are all home now and her husband came and picked up approximately 4 gallons of my breast milk for them.  She had priced out purchasing breast milk via a bank and it was over $4K for the triplets for the first month.  Was great to find someone locally to help out!"

This made me so happy!  Proud of her!  Proud of me for knowing the resource even existed!

***Note:  There is nothing bad about using a milk bank; in fact milk banks are amazing and they don't make a profit on your milk donations, but the cost of pasteurizing the milk for donation is high and therefore, parents have to pay for the milk.  The pasteurization of the milk, while ensuring there is no spread of infectious disease via shared milk, does kill a lot of the really good stuff that fresh human milk contains.  So using milk bank milk has its pros and its cons.

My husband and I did use a milk bank for our daughter.  It was $$$, but we only had to do it for a few weeks for one baby while I got my lactation issues resolved.  And if I had known about milk sharing outside the bank, I probably would have gone that route instead.  The choice is personal, but the important thing to know is that if you are struggling to feed your babe at the breast, there is milk out there for you!

Totally Exposed Part 2

A big thank you to my friend, Kirsi, for sending me this hilarious post from The Feminist Breeder on breastfeeding in public, aka, topic du jour...

http://thefeministbreeder.com/why-subscribe/5-places-where-breastfeeding-is-certainly-inappropriate/

In the post she suggests there are 5 locations in which breastfeeding may in fact be inappropriate.  They are as follows:

1.  In traffic.
2.  In a car chase.
3.  In battle.
4.  In orbit.
5.  In a public restroom

While I laughed hard and happily at this woman's hilarious thoughts on each of the above, and I will definitely be following her blog (as should you!), I'd like to throw in my own two cents.

1.  In traffic.... I have in fact dangled my breast over my child while keeping her securely fastened in her car seat while my husband navigated traffic.  Not recommended or particularly safe for mom, but if it kept baby happy and quiet, I was all for it.  *Side note:  Yes it has occurred to me that if anything happens to me, my child won't be able to breastfeed anymore, making putting myself in danger while breastfeeding quite counter productive to the whole mission, and yet....*

2.  In a car chase...  I don't know, breastfeeding in a car chase, while it might violate car seat laws, has the potential of keeping the kiddo calm under pressure.  And calm under pressure seems pretty apropros for car chases.  Am I wrong here?

3.  In battle... Just like the car chase, staying cool under pressure seems pretty important in battle as does staying quiet.  If I wanted to sneak up on someone so I could take them out, I'd want my kid to stay quiet.  Breastfeeding does just that.  Seems standard protocol for mothers going in to battle IMO.

4.  In orbit.... This sounds terrifying.  When I'm terrified I need a nice snuggle and some warm milk, don't you?  I'd want to be snuggled in close to my mama or other loved one if I was launched into orbit or reentering the earth's atmosphere at mach whatever, so I vote this is an appropriate time for nursing.

5.  In a public restroom... No arguments here.  These are nasty.  If you don't agree, go ahead and nurse away, but I'd rather not hang out in one of these longer than it takes to hover-tinkle.

Thanks again to the Feminist Breeder for her good laughs.  I hope I added some more.  Happy weekend!