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Some newborns require breast milk for health reasons. Supplies are running low.
A California breast milk bank is having to cut back on helping babies who need it because supplies are running short, as are other milk banks around the country.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Mothers’ Milk Bank in San Jose is unable to meet the demand for donated breast milk given to babies who need it for medical reasons such as prematurity. They explain, “Babies at high risk often need human milk because they have trouble digesting foreign substances such as formula.”
Many of the few milk banks that exist in the United States already have to stretch their supplies across several states because no such banks exists in those other areas, yet more and more doctors are prescribing breast milk to sick babies. In an interview with the Chronicle, San Jose’s Pauline Sakamoto said, “In the 12 years I’ve been executive director, I’ve never been short. We’ve had to cut back on some of the hospital orders just so we can service more. We had to cut back on some outpatient kids because we didn’t have that supply.”
How You Can Help Babies in Need
Scientists in China have successfully genetically modified cows to produce “human breastmilk”.
They claim the milk is identical to breastmilk in its nutritional composition, immune benefits and antibacterial qualities. In other words, they’re saying it’s exactly the same stuff. It just happens to come from cows instead of human mamas.
They hope to be selling the stuff in supermarkets within three years. It’s being promoted as a healthier dairy alternative. Not just for babies. For everybody.
Can you imagine drinking “breastmilk” from a cow? Continue reading »
With all the furor over public breastfeeding going on, it’s a good time to take a look at another issue: problems breastfeeding.
Some women just can’t breastfeed. The baby won’t latch, the milk never comes in, their nipples are the wrong shape. A host of problems can crop up that get between a mama and her best intentions when it comes to feeding her baby.
For women who have milk but can’t get it into the baby by the usual method, there’s an unusual option: exclusive pumping. This means you pump breastmilk for your baby all day long, and instead of getting it straight from the source, your child drinks your milk from a bottle or a feeding tube. Sounds crazy? Maybe. Exhausting? Definitely. But a lot of women do it.
In a revealing essay on Babble, Laura Moser talks about why she went for exclusive pumping, and why she stopped.
Does breastfeeding enhance bonding?
One more reason to believe breast is best: a new study suggests that moms who breastfeed bond better with their babies.
By watching moms’ brains light up in an fMRI while listening to infants crying, they found that all moms reacted more strongly to their own child’s cry than that of another baby. The breastfeeding moms had a much more pronounced reaction though, suggesting a stronger bond with their infant.
Before you leap on this bit of data as proof that breastfeeding is the only way to go, researchers caution that it’s hardly conclusive.
Clearly, there should be some decorum when nursing the babies publicly. But Army wife Jess Lanham (not pictured!) was way modest when she let her kid latch on.
Nursing mom Jess Lanham was waiting patiently at the military housing office on the Fort Bragg army base, which is more than one could say for her 8-month-old daughter. During the trip to the office, which lasted several hours, the girl got hungry like babies do.
While filling out paperwork in a private office, Lanham covered herself, unbuttoned her top and let the girl latch on. The housing representative with whom she was meeting told her to stop. Continue reading »
Ready for pumping human breastmilk
How did I not see this coming?
Chinese scientists claim they have genetically modified cows so that they’ll produce milk nearly identical to human breast milk. A herd of 200 are already producing milk that they claim is just like mom’s.
The state-run China Daily says that the milk will be sold in stores just a couple of years from now and within a decade, different products containing the substance will be on the shelves. Continue reading »
The FDA has issued a warning letter to Medela about a slew of customer complaints related to their breast pumps. Perhaps the freakiest: “Fourteen Pump in Style Advanced (PNSA) electric breast pump complaints document motors and transformers smoking or catching fire.”
That’s right: catching fire. Fire is not what you’re looking for in a breast pump.
Here are some other things to watch out for: problems with the manufacturing may lead to the pumps losing suction, having too weak a suction or failing to switch on. They were also cited by the FDA for failing to properly track and respond to customer complaints, and for failing to document their own safety procedures properly.
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