Milk and Love
Meet Halima. Gorgeous, isn’t she? She’s Aurora’s milk sister.
So what’s a milk sister? That’s a baby who has shared milk from the same mama. Because Halima’s mother had a rare and really unpleasant birth complication, she is unable to nurse this time (Halima has an older brother). And because her parents are completely clear on the fact that breastmilk is hands-down the best thing to feed a baby, they called for help. I’m on one of the email lists they asked for assistance on, and so here I am, pumping milk.
Technically, that means I’m nursing three kids right now. I am the dairy queen!
Joking aside, it’s astonishing how much distaste people have for this practice. The squidge factor is superhigh. And yet 100% of the people who flip out when they find out you’re feeding a stranger’s child, even indirectly, drink the milk of other species. But sharing human milk? That’s just yucky.
Grow up.
The research has proven, time and time and time again, that human milk is the best food for human babies. So why do people flip out when you feed human milk to a human baby? Clearly they can’t have thought it through.
It’s ridiculously hard to find information on this practice of milk sharing. I know that in the Muslim faith, milk siblings are considered so close they may not marry. I know that in Romanian culture milk siblings are considered as closely related as blood siblings. I know that before some 19th century man decided that corn syrup solids were better than wet nurses, this kind of thing just happened without comment, because women looked out for each other and for each other’s babies. If something happened to make it difficult to feed a baby, other women just stepped in and helped. And like so many other aspects of what’s now referred to as “attachment parenting”, it was such a common event it was pretty much entirely undocumented. Which makes it tough on those of us trying to access the accumulated wisdom of generations.
I have huge admiration for Halima’s parents. The lengths they’re going to to ensure milk for their girl are just herculean. I think of all the women who could breastfeed and don’t because of some misguided ideas about vanity and propriety, and I want to cry. But I also think that great challenge often gives great blessings both to those who endure and those who are called to assist. I feel honored to be able to give this connection to my children, this new milk sister of theirs. Even Kestrel gets that this is an important thing; he’s voluntarily cut back on his nursing times, in favor of “just cuddling” so there’s more milk for Halima.
So if anyone reading this knows more than me (which wouldn’t be hard) about milk sharing, especially in other cultures, let me know in the comments. And if anyone reading this is in the SF Bay Area, more donations are appreciated.
Did you see the story about milk sharing after the earthquake in China? I thought of you when I first saw the story back in May. If you haven’t seen it, I’ll e-mail you a link. Milk-sharing is awesome. Almost 70 years ago, my grandmother fell ill after giving birth, her sister stepped in and nursed the new-born baby along side her own toddler. My favorite aunt was that baby and she is one of the most incredible women I know–thank goodness for milk-sharing.
Good for you to help that baby and mom out! Kudos!
Back when I was a volunteer at Valley Medical Center in Santa Clara (70’s), one of my jobs was to take donated breast milk from one end of the hospital where moms brought it in to the other end where it was stored for preemies and other babies. I also had a neighbor who used to feed her sister’s babies and vice versa when they shared babysitting. I had just assumed that this was an accepted practice. I am surprised to hear there is such a huge squidge factor at all these days.
It always boils down to ignorance and lack of knowledge. In this day and age of formula, most people just don’t stop to think about these things. Boy, just think how much fatter we’d be if we drank whale’s milk!
Great job on the blog as always, and so glad you could help out little Halima! She’s damned cute too!
Dana
Wet Nursing was actually a very common practice in the olden days. It is practiced now only in a different way. Laureen here is a site you might look into for Halima’s Mom and Dad. It’s a Milk Bank in San Jose.
http://www.milkbanksj.org/
I think you are an AWESOME Momma for sharing.
Kudos to Kes too for just cuddling.
Believe it or not, the milk bank accepts milk for free (as in, you don’t get paid for donating milk there), they then pasteurize it (ruining a lot of the immunological benefit) and then charge people $3/ounce for it. If you figure a 10-week old baby is plowing through 30oz a day… it gets ridiculous fast. So that’s the scoop on milk banks. =(
Sorry! :{ Sounded good. When surfing the web looking, look for Wet Nursing, instead of milk sharing.
I salute you, mommy! good job! and i wish you will have enough milk for your “three children”
Yeah, I don’t get all the hysteria about sharing breastmilk with another baby. I’ve either cross-nursed or donated pumped milk to at least 5 babies. I nursed my sister’s baby once or twice, my SIL’s twins a few times when we were visiting, another SIL’s baby a few times when she was out shopping. I also donated a huge amount of pumped breastmilk to a mom who had low supply issues due to PCOS. (It was originally intended for a family who was adopting a baby, but the adoption fell through at the last minute).
I want to pump & donate every time I have a baby. I pumped once a day in the mornings and, once I got my body adjusted, would be able to pump 6-8 oz per day. Zari didn’t seem to suffer at all. I’d nurse her when she woke up, then pump whatever was left over.
I know how hard I would try to find breastmilk if I were unable to nurse my own baby. That motivates me to help others out.
My aunt babysat 4 nursing babies at any given time should there mom need to either step out and do errands, was was working part time. She said by the time the babies stopped nursing, she could squirt her milk across the room it came out so easily. =)
If I could find a babysitter willing to nurse my son, it would be so wonderful. I hate pumping, I’m never able to get much from it. Breastfeeding is such an emotionally driven event for me, that a pump just doesn’t cut it. Even while breastfeeding on the other breast!
Ah, Laureen, always doing too cool things. Well, I know about milk siblings. In France (where I live) we have a country house where there is an 80 year-old woman who runs a little country store in our village. When I was nursing dd1 (she was 18 m/o… extended b/f DOESN’T happen here) she saw us nursing (her store has a little café where I was sitting with a friend). She said, “Well of course. That’s why she’s so beautiful… you breastfeed.” It started a dialogue that has lasted in the 7 years since… she knows more about b/f than just about any woman I have met. But she isn’t a LC, she isn’t an ‘expert’… women of her generation knew this. She was the first to tell me about her ‘milk brother’. I soooo get how stupid it is to feel ‘icky’ about this… it just cracks me up. Yes, let’s drink bovine fluid, that is much more normal than mother’s milk.
When I left France for my attempted hb, she and her friends also ‘got’ that… they shuddered to think what birthing in a hospital was like…. Funny… we lose a lot sometimes between generations.
You go, mama! I’m sickened to hear about what the milk banks are doing with prices and pasteurizing. SICKENED! Yet that’s our society, isn’t it? :big sigh:
With my first born I was pumping several times a day. We had an entire freezer stocked with frozen milk for a while. I don’t know why, but I was always worried that something would happen where we might get separated and that she’d need my milk. A few months later, realizing DD was not even remotely interested in a bottle, we tossed it all. I so wish we had known of someone who could have used it. I’ve always been blessed with an abundance of milk.
Thank you for sharing, my friend. Just in time for world breastfeeding week.
You should check out some of the area hospitals too - I donated milk to the Mother’s Milk Bank that’s attached to the UIHC. They don’t pay for donations, the University absorbs the cost of processing the milk, and women and babies who need the milk are not charged for it. They have a firm commitment to provide breastmilk to ANY baby in the whole state who needs it because of prematurity, a short-term drop in mom’s milk supply, or other health issues. The women who run it, Jean and Cynthia, are awesome ladies. Here’s a link to the Mother’s Milk Bank site:
http://www.uihealthcare.com/depts/uichildrenshospital/milkbank/index.html
They might know of other milk banks attached to hospitals that are NOT for-profit ventures. I think it’s really sickening that women would donate of their very bodies and then have some creepy corporation charge other women for that gift.
I don’t get the hysteria either. I’ve pumped and shared lots and lots of my milk, as well as nursing my sister’s babies on occasion. I think she’s even nursed mine. What’s the big deal? I really don’t understand it.
Hi Laureen…..just happened to stumble across your post on milk sharing. It’s a fascinating topic, isn’t it?
I was never able to pump any amount of reasonable milk so I’ve never been able to donate that way. However, I have plenty of supply from nursing itself and have done that on occasion when needed…..helped out with other babies while babysitting them (all with full permission of the mom of course)……..it’s really not that unusual. If for some reason bfing hadn’t worked out with one of my babies, I would have been looking for donations like crazy.
I think the squick factor is part and parcel of the whole HIV scare thing. And also, just a basic squidgy perception of most people in our bfing-ignorant society that breastmilk is a bodily fluid, so therefore, sharing=ick. Doh!
If you are looking for resources that discuss milk sharing and wet nursing, check out “Milk, Money, and Madness” by Baumslag and Michels. LLL probably has it. Not a huge discussion, but there is some in there. By now the book is a tad dated, but still a good read. You could probably borrow it from a LLL chapter somewhere.
If you are a history fanatic, there is an interesting set of historical novels by Ellis Peters about Prince Llewellyn of Wales. The narrator was a “milk brother” of Llewellyn, iirc, because his mother was L’s wet nurse. Was very frank about how close they were, almost like blood brothers. That set of novels was the first I’d ever heard of the concept. The novels are a bit long and heavy on the historical detail, but on the whole are quite interesting reading. A fascinating time period, and lovely to see how accepted the whole milk-sharing idea was back then.
Just thought you’d be interested to hear about those resources.
What a lovely post. My daughter has a milk sister, too, and it is such a special feeling to know I am helping nurture another little baby! I met my milk recipient through my midwife. I pump once a day and get about 4 oz/day (they only need a bit of supplementation). I hope I can always share my milk with needing babies!
Hi Laureen (and everyone else),
I’m Halima’s mom.
What Laureen and several other women have done for us is amazing. I am still mourning the loss of my breastfeeding relationship with Halima, although I often feed her through a Lact-aid and she suckles for comfort as well. The biggest thing that has taken the “edge” off of the pain for me has been the milk donations. Knowing that she’s getting such good healthy milk, plus the connections I’ve made with amazing women has helped me move from “why would I be given a child and no milk with which to feed her?” to “I wish I could feed her but since I cannot, this mama circle has closed ranks around us and I feel so blessed.”
Tears in my eyes on a daily basis, I tell you.