Milk Bank Donors Give the Gift of 'Liquid Gold'

The tiny babies in the intensive care unit might fit in the palm of your hand and are at risk of contracting any number of illnesses that could endanger their lives. Those infants need help from an organization that may still be a secret to many in the Austin area — the Mothers' Milk Bank of Austin. The non-profit milk bank supplies much needed human milk to children who otherwise might never make it out of the hospital.

"It's fairly well known how important breast milk is to the health of any infant," said Gretchen Flatau, executive director of MMBA. "But we're dealing with fragile and sick infants. In those situations, human milk really can mean the difference between life and death."

Most of the infants who receive milk from the MMBA weigh between one and three pounds, called micro-preemies in hospitals' neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). Some babies were born with drugs in their systems, others are awaiting surgery or may have other serious health problems; most were just born much too early. Many are allergic to baby formula and require human milk, which is less allergenic and easier to digest for such immature digestive systems. When these babies are unable to receive milk from their own mothers, getting human milk from a donor decreases their risk of infection and improves their general health.

"They tend to get out of the hospital sooner and actually survive it," said Flatau. "For our babies, human milk is a medical necessity."

Liquid gold

The milk bank is always in need of mothers to donate their milk. "We're just barely staying ahead of the demand," said Flatau. "We're nothing without our volunteers." And those volunteers come from all over, near and far.

When Cedar Park resident Jana Doggett was ready to go back to work after her first son was born, she was more than prepared and filled both freezers in her house with breast milk she had pumped. "Needless to say, I had a lot of milk," she said. "Honestly, I was just looking for a place to get rid of it. I didn't want to throw it out after all I had worked for it.”

Doggett found out about the milk bank online. "With all the pumping I did I honestly felt like I had worked for it and it was liquid gold to me. Finding out that it was liquid gold to them as well made the decision easy," she said. She donated milk after the birth of her first son, now 22 months old, and is currently donating with her second son, almost 3 months old.

"The milk bank is an awesome opportunity for nursing mothers to donate their breast milk," said Holli Sicard of Leander. "It is such a worthy cause. Why would I not donate to something that I had ability to? It is no different than donating to a blood bank. Wet nurses have been around for ages, even in the Bible."

Amber Thompson was about to move from Augusta, Ga., to Cypress, Texas, when she realized she had a freezer full of breast milk. "I knew I could not safely transport the amount of milk I had saved. It actually made me want to cry when I thought I might have to throw all that milk down the sink!" MMBA supplied her with coolers to fill with milk and dry ice, then paid to have the coolers shipped back to Austin overnight. "I ended up sending them nine boxes with an estimated amount of 2,700 to 3,000 ounces. Can you imagine how terrible I would have felt about throwing that away?"

Charis Young's daughter was born nine weeks premature and was unable to consume all the milk her mother was producing. "We certainly couldn't imagine Hannah ever taking all that I produced and didn't want it to go to waste," said Young. "Besides, if we were in the position of needing the milk, we would have been eternally grateful to those who could help."

Young took milk from her McKinney home to MMBA's Milk Depot in the NICU at Presbyterian Hospital in Plano. "We feel blessed that I could help those children to grow and thrive," she said.

Aruni Gunasegaram of Anderson Mill found out early that her now 4-month-old daughter was a very efficient nurser. "I was pumping a lot of milk that I wouldn't be able to use right away. I didn't want the milk to go to waste and I remembered hearing about the milk bank and contacted them," she said.

"I decided to donate because my own baby was thriving, I had extra breast milk to spare, and I wanted to help other babies grow up healthy," said Austinite Mia Burton, whose two sons are 2 and a half and almost 1 year old. "Having a healthy baby is a gift, and I wanted to help others who were not so fortunate. There but for the grace of God go I, so to speak."

Supplying the demand

"The research is really supporting the use of human milk and has made a difference in the way doctors are viewing it. There are more younger doctors who have had a different training than what you would have gotten 20 or 30 years ago and they value milk in a different way. I think that has led to an increase in the number of milk banks," Flatau said.

Austin 's milk bank, established in 1999, is one of only nine in the United States. Last year, MMBA pasteurized 196,000 ounces of human milk and served 26 hospitals, including many in Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas and other Texas cities as well as hospitals in Louisiana, South Carolina, Indiana and Ohio.

The demand for human milk banks has grown so much in recent years that one enterprising California company, Prolacta, is actually opening a for-profit milk bank this month.

Donors must be in good health and are carefully screened before MMBA will accept their milk. They drop off containers of frozen breast milk to one of the milk bank's collection locations — at Seton Northwest hospital, at MMBA's office in downtown Austin, or at one of the milk depots in Houston, Bedford or Plano. The milk is then thawed and pasteurized gently to kill any contaminants while protecting the milk's antibodies and nutritional value.

"The milk is tested during the process so that we know there are no contaminants," said Flatau. "Once it's been pasteurized, refrozen, labeled, passed all of its testing and we know that it's 100-percent safe, then it can go out to the hospital."

One unique feature offered only by Austin's milk bank is the ability to label each unit of milk with specific nutritional information for that batch of milk. This nutritional information helps doctors decide how best to use each unit of milk. And the babies who consume just a little milk every day can get just the right amount of protein for their needs.

A sense of community

Donors sometimes even join together to champion collective causes. For example, last November, when a Round Rock restaurant owner ejected a mother from the building for nursing inside the restaurant, MMBA donors gathered with other breastfeeding supporters to hold a "nurse-in" at the restaurant.

And donors definitely share the feeling that they are helping infants in need.

"It feels wonderful knowing that my milk could help babies and parents," said Gunasegaram, an entrepreneur whose new company, Babble Soft, distributes software to help new parents keep track of feeding, pumping and diapering. "It's often stressful having a healthy newborn; I can't imagine what parents of preemies or sick babies must have to go through. It must make them feel good to know they are giving their babies the best thing they can to help them survive."

"It's a great feeling," said Burton. "Being a new parent is a hectic and stressful time, and it may feel like the last thing you would want to do is to take on one more thing like becoming a milk donor, but just think about all the good you can do. Everyone should give something back to their community, and new moms have a unique gift they can give that no one else can."

Putting a price on milk banking

Despite doctors’ recommendations that hospitals rely on human milk instead of formula, setbacks still abound. Breastfeeding advocates were distressed last year when one of Austin’s large hospital chains opted to remove lactation consultants from the permanent staff and put them “on call” instead. The advocates feared new mothers would be sent home with babies they could not successfully and confidently breastfeed, resulting in anxious, unprepared moms and dehydrated infants.

"That's an indication that some hospital administrators are still very short-sighted," said Flatau. "And, in fact, I think it's led to an increase in donor milk in this area." But MMBA is not trying to drum up new business. Quite the contrary.

"Ultimately, this organization would like to work ourselves out of a job," Flatau said. "We would be thrilled if every baby was getting milk from their own mother. The reality is that's never going to be the case."

Learn more about the Mothers' Milk Bank of Austin, located at 900 East 30th Street in downtown Austin, by calling 494-0800 or logging onto its website at www.mmbaustin.org.

Published in the Hill Country News 8/12/05