We Are The What?

I should have known better when Twitter feed with this link said, "Know what's worse than the "Let It Be" video?" Thanks Uncle Randy!

I'm not even sure WTF this is but they sure trotted out an impressive array of um, um... they sure got a lot of folks for this didn't they?

A Little Balance Would Be Nice

The Today Show just ran a segment on mothers who want to share their breast milk.

I think this is an awesome thing; babies should be drinking human milk whenever possible and it makes sense that some women produce substantially more milk than they need just as others don't produce quite enough. This concept is not a new one, think of wet nurses. I bet this went (and still goes) on between individuals a lot more than people realize.

Here's the rub.

If you are sharing your milk with your cousin or someone you know well, it makes a lot of sense for this to take place over the backyard fence, so to speak. I vaguely remember my grandmother telling us a story of a woman who died in child birth and how other mothers would take turns nursing the baby once or twice a day to supplement the milk (cow I guess, this was the 1930s) the baby was getting.

Along comes technology to make things thorny.

On one hand you have these companies called "milk banks". I think some (most) of them are non-profit but they have shipping costs, storage costs, costs for screening and testing the potential donors, etc. have the technology like freezers, pasteurizers and sanitation machinery on a scope that allows them to service hundreds if not thousands of babies. That said, they said that mother the and hospitals who need the milk can pay upwards of $5 an ounce. Ouch! So much for trying to do the right thing by baby.

There clearly has to be a better way. Right?

Well some mothers are taking to Craigslist and other unregulated sites swapping milk (in much the same way my grandmothers' community did back in the day (the milk banks are unregistered as well but they seem to be a lot harder to drop out of site than one individual). The interesting thing is that, thanks to technology you aren't bound to the women in your immediate geographical area.

That's also the drawback.

These mother's are taking feeding their babies either assuming or hoping that the woman whose milk their babies are consuming has a nutritious diet, doesn't smoke or use any other sorts of drugs that you wouldn't want your child exposed to.

So if I want to ensure my baby get's breast milk and I can't supply it I can either (a)pay a premium to feed my child breast milk that's been pasteurized and stored - but the donors are screened or (b)network with a stranger and hope that the milk I'm getting is as free of chemicals and toxins that I wouldn't want to pass onto my child. (and just because she looks like you and has a college degree and lives in a "nice" neighborhood and seems like a nice lady with a cute baby, that is no guarantee that your potential milk donor would pass as screening test.

What the hell kind of choice is that?

I am loath to involve the government in anything but why can't the county health departments allow women to go through a health screening and become certified breast milk donors?