Last week, a few breastfeeding advocate friends of mine alerted me and other moms to the fact that September 24th through the 30th of this year is World Milksharing Week. According to the official website, World Milksharing Week is held annually during the last week of September with this goal in mind: “to celebrate milksharing and to promote human milk as the biologically normal nourishment for babies and children.” You can read more about how the idea for this came about here. The theme for this year’s Milksharing Week is “Sharing Milk, Nurturing Community.”
Even though I consider myself pro-breastfeeding (I don’t think I can qualify as a true-blue advocate yet) and even have quite a number of blog posts about it, milksharing is something that I never really gave a serious thought about before. That was, until I read about breast milk donations, especially during times of emergencies. (You can read a bit about them here and here.) I realized that breastfeeding truly does save lives and formula milk donations could prove hazardous to the health of children affected by disasters such as typhoons and earthquakes.
Think about it: When people are stuck in evacuation centers or refugee camps, there is usually a shortage of food supplies and clean water. Diarrhea outbreaks are very common and spread easily due to the lack of proper health care and sanitation systems. According to this article on Protecting babies in emergencies: the role of the public, “babies who are not breastfed are very likely to contract diarrhea-causing illnesses from unclean water and, with a weakened immune system and limited treatment, many will die.”
Here, in the Philippines, breast milk donation drives were carried out in the aftermath of typhoons Ondoy and Sendong and the recent heavy monsoon rains that caused massive floods everywhere. However, public awareness about such relief operations is still quite low, and many aid organizations still sent out calls for formula milk donations.
Of course, donating formula milk may seem like the more practical thing to do in times of emergency, but people need to be aware of the long-term, drastic effects introducing formula milk during disasters may have on infants and children.
Personally, I’ve never shared my breastmilk with anyone else — primarily because both of my kids breastfed directly (well, our youngest still does at present, even if she already turned three, and I’m currently pregnant with our third child). This means that I never pumped, nor stored breastmilk. So, I never had breastmilk to donate.
Now that I’m pregnant again though, and anticipating having to pump and store my milk in the future (since my working conditions now are different as compared to before), I am fairly excited (though half intimidated, ha, ha!) at the thought of stashing “liquid gold” and being able to share it with others if needed (yes, I’m idealistic like that!).
I was especially inspired to do so after reading the story of Melissa Menes on a breastfeeding community Facebook page, a Filipina mother who discovered that the daughter she was carrying in her womb had congenital diaphragmatic hernia during her fifth month of pregnancy. The doctors didn’t give her a good prognosis, but still, Melissa and her husband chose to go on with the pregnancy. They promised their little girl that even if she didn’t make it, they would commit to donating Melissa’s breastmilk “to give other babies a chance.”
True enough, Melissa’s little girl passed away a day after she was born. And true to their promise, Melissa started pumping her milk and donated it to babies who were in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the hospital where her daughter was born. As of this writing, about ten babies have been receiving her milk for the last two months.
When I think about Melissa’s story, my heart aches for her loss and yet, at the same time, rejoices at her selflessness. Her love for her daughter is, in a way — and perhaps, the most concrete way possible — being shared with many other children. She is sharing the very best of herself to others, and at the same time, is slowly healing, too.
In her own words: “The loss of a baby throws off your perception of the world, because babies are not supposed to die. But the experience of donating breast milk has been a great help to us during this time.”
Sharing the very best of ourselves is not an easy thing to do. It would be so much easier to just focus on our needs, our wants and our hopes and dreams for our own children. But I believe becoming a mother changes so many things about ourselves — we become more selfless, more giving, more considerate of others (at least ideally, we do!). I only hope and pray that when my time comes to be a “new” mother the third time around (isn’t giving birth always a “new experience”?), I can be as selfless and giving as Melissa is, and donate my breastmilk when needed.
Do you have any milksharing stories of your own? What are your thoughts about breastfeeding and sharing one’s breastmilk with others?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Tina Santiago-Rodriguez.
The image used in this post is credited to the Medela Moms Philippines and is used by permission from the group.
Wow, Tina, thank you so much for this story. I’m one of the unfortunate few who REALLY struggled to breastfeed and who “dried up” a mere 3 months after birth! What you say makes total sense … if we can donate blood, why shouldn’t we donate milk? I know of women who actually discard “surplus” breastmilk, what a waste!
Actually, the idea of “sharing” breastmilk isn’t a new one. Before milk formula was invented that was what “wet nurses” were for! I love the idea that people are starting to realise that the “natural, low tech” solutions are often better than the “new, engineered” ones! 🙂
Hi, Simona! 🙂 Thanks for your sharing your thoughts through your comment! I love what you said about blood donations and breast milk donations – makes sense, right? I should have mentioned “wet nurses” in my post! 🙂 Will write about it separately on my own blog soon. 🙂 Blessings!
Thank you for sharing this, Tina. Love the selflessness of mothers who donate their milk to those in need. Melissa’s story is heartbreaking and inspirational.
Hi Alison! 🙂 Yes, Melissa’s story is truly inspiring! I was able to write her whole story here by the way: http://www.smartparenting.com.ph/mom-dad/breastfeeding/sharing-milk-stories/world-milksharing-week-a-filipina-mom-s-inspiring-true-story
You gals might want to check it out! 🙂 Super touching!
God bless!
Thank you so much for this! In BC, Canada, there was a milk bank program. I was made aware of it at the hospital and was asked to donate. I was fortunate enough to have enough milk for 3, I donated milk weekly.
Wow! How generous of you! 🙂 I hope to be able to donate milk someday, too! 🙂
Tina,
Melissa’s is a really powerful story. Thank you for sharing it with us.
That is an interesting point about water supplies being compromised in an emergency, if formula is being made with water. As we know, a baby can’t wait as long as an adult for a feed!
This really makes you think — the breast milk has to be kept frozen, and must be used soon after it defrosts. For a longer term emergency, it is the breastfeeding women who will be able to keep babies fed if clean water and refrigeration isn’t available, given she survives the emergency, too. But fingers crossed, in any event, help will be on the way!
On another note — this is a really good reminder to always have a storage of bottled water where you live, too! For example, this summer here, in New Jersey, USA, our local water main broke in a strong storm. Apparently, the pipes had some damage from last year’s bad hurricane, and it wasn’t completely repaired as thought. We had to boil water for a week before everything was up and running again.
Bravo to the mothers donating their milk to provide for other babies. Very commendable!! Interesting post, Tina!!
Jen 🙂
Jen, as always, thanks for your support and awesome comments! It’s true, we really need to have stored up clean water all the time. Though the sad reality is many people don’t have that luxury. 🙁 Let’s do what we can to help, right? God bless!
Wow¡ What an amazing story! Thanks for sharing. I didn’t know about this programs. What a blessing it is to receive such good nourishment during times of disaster.
You know, I think I read a few news stories about breastfeeding moms and milksharing in Indonesia, too! Will look for the links. 🙂 God bless!
This post warms my heart. Thank you for sharing this Tina. Such a noble act and what a blessings it is to be able to do that. I’ve read some stories on twitter about similar things happening here in Indonesia. Usually, it also involves Blackberry Messenger and Twitter where people quickly broadcast that a baby need breastmilk due to some circumstances from the mother and people are really fast to help out.
Yes, Maureen, I believe I’ve read a few similar stories of Indonesian moms doing the same thing. 🙂 Wonderful, isn’t it?
What an interesting post Tina – thanks for sharing all that information! I’ve been done breastfeeding for a year now, but I am curious into looking into this to learn if there are any milk bank type of efforts here in the Pacific NW US.
Hi Eva! 🙂 Thanks for your comment. 🙂 I’m sure there are milk banks there in the Pacific NW US. 🙂 Try looking at http://www.worldmilksharing.net or http://www.hm4hb.net/ for starters. 🙂 Or perhaps your local La Leche League branch would know of any. 🙂 Blessings!
What a wonderful, generous person Melissa must be! Instead of focussing on her own pain and loss, she helped give life and nutrients to others to help another mother from suffering the same fate. I was never very good at pumping (I would have to pump several times to get a single feeding, even though both kids got more than enough when they nursed directly). I did read a story recently about a family who was moving, and they had bags upon bags of frozen milk. They looked everywhere to be ale to donate them, but many of the center were refusing the milk for various reasons. Make sure to contact the local donation center to find out everything you need to be able to successfully donate your milk. Good luck!
Thanks for the tip, Maman! 🙂 And yes, Melissa’s story is truly an example of selflessness and love! 🙂 Blessings!
I love this post. It is so important that we know we can help other women in this way. My mum breasfed my cousin once, but I have never fed another woman’s child and she pumped for neonates when I was first born. I had plenty of milk, but my boys insisted it was all theirs!
Kudos to your mum, Karyn! 🙂 I think it’s totally selfless of her to have shared her milk with other babies! 🙂