The Nutritional Medicinal And Preventative Uses For Donor Breast Milk

There are very few distributing milk banks in North America but those that do exist are doing a wonderful job of giving recipients the gift of nourishing breast milk that also has medicinal and...

There are very few distributing milk banks in North America but those that do exist are doing a wonderful job of giving recipients the gift of nourishing breast milk that also has medicinal and preventative uses.

There are many uses for donor breast milk including infants who suffer from severe food allergies, those who have had severe reactions from infant formula, and those who are prematurely born and need the preventative and healing powers of breast milk in their precarious health state. All of these babies can be kept alive and kept healthy because there is the ability to give them donor breast milk. The healing and preventative properties of human breast milk have been verified through countless studies.

Bank milks are in existence today because there is a realization that many infants will not survive without breast milk, infants who have been diagnosed with failure to thrive (FTT), infants with formula intolerances, allergies or other medical conditions that require human milk for survival. There are also moms who desire to give their babies the benefits of breast milk but are unable to breastfeed due to breast surgery, cancer or insufficient milk glands. On occasion moms of severely premature babies may not be able to get their own lactation going quickly enough for the needs of their very young premature infants and may need a milk bank to help supplement breast milk until their own supply can come in.

Many babies that may benefit from donor breast milk do not receive this beneficial gift of milk because so many doctors are not aware of the existence of human milk banks. The nutritional uses for donor breast milk include infants who are premature, who have malabsorption syndromes, infants suffering from renal failure, those who have inborn errors of metabolism, those who are suffering from cardiac problems, failure to thrive, short-gut syndrome, are post-surgical, have a feeding intolerance, or are post-surgical or have bronchopulmonary dysplasia. Infants who are burn cases also benefit greatly from receiving donor breast milk if their moms are unable to breastfeed. There are other medicinal or therapeutic uses for donor breast milk including part of the treatment for infectious diseases like intractable diarrhea, gastroenteritis, infantile botulism, pneumonia, hemorrhagic conjunctivitis, and sepsis. Post-surgical healing is another benefit of donor breast milk. Infants who suffer from immunodeficiency diseases such as severe allergies, and IgA deficiencies also benefit from donor breast milk or infants and adults who have solid organ transplants and those infants who have non-infectious intestinal disorders such as ulcerative colitis, and irritable bowel syndrome.

There are also many preventative uses for donor breast milk such as when the infant suffers from necrotizing enterocolitis which is commonly experienced by premature infants in the NICU, and also when immune suppression therapy is being used, when the infant suffers from allergies, or from Crohn’s disease or colitis. Donor breast milk is also beneficial for infants diagnosed with feeding intolerance.

Typically a prescription is needed in order for an individual (usually a baby) is able to use donor milk.

Human milk banks are responsible for the screening of the donors, the collection of the breast milk, screening and processing the milk, and dispensing the donor human breast milk. There must be regulation in place to be assured that the milk is safe due to the fact that the recipient of the donor milk is not related to the donor. Frozen milk can be shipped to where the recipient is located. Usually, most insurance companies will cover the cost of donor milk when it is medically necessary for the recipient to have.

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