Exploding Boobs: Donation vs Profit

Eats on Feets and Human Milk for Human Babies are both organizations that should have a local chapter.

 

You may also want to check out a website called Only the Breast.

 

fflowley, thanks for posting the link to that article! Yes, it's relatively easy to contaminate the bottles that you pump into with salmonella - if you're washing your bottles in the dishwasher alongside cookware. Then the milk gets tainted as described. Also, if you don't wash your hands before handling pump parts, there's a good chance that things will be contaminated with whatever you've been handling in the workplace (assuming you're pumping at work) or at home. Also, if you don't change your nursing pads regularly it's possible to spread fungal infections.

PonyPotato it's a very real issue, one that I wish I had a little more time to address.
I've encountered moms who claim they're trying to feed their babies, asking for donations, but then turn around and sell it for profit. It makes me furious. I was very careful about who I gave my milk to - and made sure that I met the child/children my milk would benefit. I eventually settled on a single family with twins to give milk to, and chose to participate in a cooperative to get a little profit off some of the excess milk as well.

But contamination is a super big issue. There are strict cleanliness standards that I maintain when I pump. The milk coop that I'm a part of has a very strict screening process and guidelines for keeping things sterile. The fact that it's a cooperative, too, makes me feel more confident that the women who are donating to the bank are taking it seriously - their livelihood is dependent upon their milk being untainted and safe.

 

Yeah, you could suggest it. But then if I followed your advice I would be living in a terrible hell.
I have worked very, very hard to decrease my supply to reasonable levels with only marginal success. I am an over-producer even if I don't pump. I have tried only nursing and not pumping - several times. In every instance I got clogged ducts. When those clogged ducts turned into a raging case of mastitis with a fever of 104*F I decided it wasn't worth trying anymore.
My family has a history of being prolific lactators. It's good thing since multiples also run in the family, and feeding twins is not a daunting task when you can easily produce enough milk for quadruplets. The fact that I started pumping so early sealed my fate as a superlactator.
There are a number of reasons why we turned to pumping and a bottle in the first place. My daughter has insufficient latch due to a tongue tie and an upper lip tie. She has a poor suck reflex as well. She damages my nipples nearly every time we try to breastfeed. Then of course there are the problems on my end - I have badly inverted nipples, which also happen to be deformed so they will never evert. Upon seeing my nipples, a lactation consultant asked, "Who ever told you you could breast feed in the first place?" With no maternity leave (grad students are so very abused in this way), I knew I'd need to pump at work and introduce a bottle relatively early anyway, so when it was obvious that my daughter was not eating enough from my breast, I pumped colostrum starting at day 2, and have been pumping ever since. I feel strongly that as long as I can produce milk for my child, I will lactate. I see it as a valuable part of motherhood, and wouldn't trade my choice to not formula feed for anything.