How to use your breast milk donation to help other mums and unwell bubs

Why make a breast milk donation?

Have you got more breastmilk than you know what to do with? Or perhaps you want to help others and have a strong belief in the value of human milk. If that’s you, you might be considering milk donation.

Most babies receive plenty of milk from their mums – as long as she gets good advice and support. However, sometimes that doesn’t happen, especially if mum is unwell.

The Australian Breastfeeding Association says that milk from another human is the next best thing. in these cases. If you can share yours, you take a weight off the shoulders of parents going through difficult times.

Can I donate my milk?

Firstly, how old is your baby? Your milk changes over time to adapt to bub’s changing needs. So milk banks have age limits when they sign up new donors. For example, the Australian Red Cross Lifeblood bank asks whether your child is younger than 12-months-old. In contrast, the limit is six months for the Mercy Health Breastmilk Bank in Victoria.

You also need to be free of infections, such as viruses like hepatitis B and C or harmful bacteria. You must not be taking specific prescription or over-the-counter medications, using recreational drugs, or regularly drinking much alcohol. (Some medications are OK to take while donating milk – the milk bank will check your medications with you.)

What are my options for donating milk?

There are two main ways to give another family your milk. The formal way is through a breast milk bank, and then there are informal ways, like a Facebook group.

Australia has five breast milk banks. They typically provide breast milk donations to our sickest babies, in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs),

• Melbourne – Mercy Health Breastmilk Bank
• Sydney – Australian Red Cross Lifeblood milk bank
• Brisbane – Australian Red Cross Lifeblood milk bank (now incorporating the former RBWH milk bank)
• Adelaide – Australian Red Cross Lifeblood milk bank
• Perth – PREM Milk Bank

Plus, the Mothers’ Milk Bank charity collects milk from mothers in southeast Queensland and northern NSW. Do you live elsewhere on Australia’s east coast? You can donate frozen breast milk if you have local access to air freight to the Gold Coast.

The informal ways to get your milk to other mothers include the Human Milk 4 Human Babies (HM4HB) network and other social media groups. Plus, traditionally, mothers would often pass their baby to a friend or family member to feed.

What are the checks to make sure breast milk donation is safe for babies?

Because donor milk generally goes to unwell or premature babies, breast milk banks must have stringent processes.

To donate, you first contact the milk bank and answer some pre-screening questions. Then you answer more detailed questions and have a blood test to check for specific infections.

The breast milk bank will also show you the safest ways to collect, store and transport your precious donation.

However, informal sharing doesn’t have as many checks and balances. In fact, according to a 2020 survey of 665 mothers, almost 80 per cent of mums using informal breast milk donations didn’t screen their donors. The most common reason being ‘because they trusted them’.

Don’t breast milk banks destroy all the ‘goodness’ of human milk when they pasteurise it?

Milk banks do warm-up donated milk to kill germs. However, pasteurised human milk provides more benefits than formula milk.

Compared to formula, pasteurised breast milk:

• It is digested and absorbed more easily
• protects babies against some infections
• includes many things that you can’t find in infant formula

There’s only a short period when you can make the generous donation of human milk to another mum and her little one. So if you’ve been thinking about sharing your breast milk, why not make some enquiries.

Reference List

Pregnancy Birth and Beyond aims to keep you informed with the latest research-based information. You can check out the reference list that we used in the creation of this article.

Published on December 14th, 2021