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to stuff Mom Never told you? From

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Hello, Welcome to the podcast. This is Molly

0:18

and I'm Kristin Christina and talk

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about breast milk. Breast milk. I've already

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done one podcast on breastfeeding, yes,

0:25

and we pretty much focused on the benefits,

0:28

or you know, the alleged benefits, because some

0:30

people aren't completely sold on it. Of

0:32

feeding milk to your child through your breast,

0:35

the bonding, the fatty

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uh minerals that go through to the to

0:40

the baby. But there's

0:42

someone out there who can't breastfeed, and

0:44

there's someone out there who make a ton of

0:46

excess breast milk, and there's some babies

0:49

who can't drink formula. Can all

0:51

these people meet in the middle, And

0:53

that is what this podcast is about. Because

0:56

we're gonna talk about breast milk banks, we're

0:58

gonna talk about breast milk swaps, we're

1:00

gonna talk about selling your breast milk, yes, And

1:02

we're not going to get into, like

1:04

Molly said, the pros and the potential cons

1:07

of breastfeeding, where the breast is best,

1:09

and all of that debate we have a separate episode

1:13

where we cover all those points. We're just gonna

1:15

stick to the banking

1:18

and the bank and all the extra stuff.

1:20

So let's start with the milk banks,

1:22

which are I was surprised to find

1:24

kind of a big historical thing. Um.

1:27

The first milk bank was

1:29

established in Vienna, Austria in nineteen

1:31

o nine, and by nineteen nineteen

1:34

there was one in Boston and another in Germany.

1:37

And basically in the early twenty century,

1:39

there were a lot of ill and premature children,

1:42

and the mothers who could make

1:44

extra milk were asked to give it to those

1:47

sick babies, and the sick babies thrived.

1:49

So people were like, hey, it seems like

1:51

maybe if we can give some excess breast milk

1:53

to the sick babies who whose mothers maybe can't

1:55

feed them because they're orphaned or because

1:58

they were born so prematurely that milk hasn't come

2:00

in, maybe they will get better.

2:02

Right. And of course this milk banking,

2:04

breast milk banking practice traces

2:07

back to wet nursing, when

2:09

you know women who couldn't produce would give

2:11

their or wealthier women would have another

2:15

milk producing lady breastfeed

2:17

their child for them. In fact, in the thirteenth

2:19

century, European women made more money working

2:22

as wet nurses than any other occupation open

2:24

to women. But I wonder in the thirteen centuries

2:26

there were many options. I'm sure

2:28

there weren't, But the idea

2:31

of using someone's milk that wasn't your own

2:33

is a very old concept, and so that's

2:35

why, um, you know, milk banks eventually

2:38

came up in that early twenty century, and now there

2:40

are several located all around the US and all

2:42

around the world, and they

2:45

are designed so that women who have excess

2:47

breast milk can donate it after going through a huge

2:49

battery of tests, because you can spread infection

2:51

through best breast milk. They

2:53

go through the test, they sack

2:55

up their breast milk in a certain way, and they send it off to the bank,

2:57

and the bank can then ship it out to

3:00

premature infants, orphans,

3:03

people who have immune deficiencies

3:05

because breast milk might help them.

3:08

And there are a ton of actual

3:10

stories where it just really helps those infants

3:12

thrive in a very hard situation. Right

3:15

For instance, um, they think that premature

3:17

babies for fed breast milk will have shorter

3:19

stays up to fifteen days

3:21

on average in neonatal intensive

3:24

care units, and they're

3:26

less likely to develop retina problems

3:28

that can lead to poor vision.

3:31

And they also think that breast milk protects against

3:33

an intestinal disease that premature

3:35

infants are especially susceptible

3:37

to. Now there are

3:40

some studies that also say that we need more

3:42

evidence that donor breast milk has

3:44

such wonderful qualities, because,

3:47

like you said, there there is risk for infection

3:50

that can be spread through breast milk,

3:52

but there has never in this country been an adverse

3:54

effect after using a breast milk bank, probably

3:57

because of the amount of testing that milk banks

3:59

do for their owners and on the milk.

4:02

However, breast milk, because

4:04

it is qualified as a food, is not regulated

4:06

by the f d A or the CDC,

4:09

so it's it's somewhat of an unregulated

4:11

industry. But as I said, no safety

4:13

incidents yet and

4:16

pretty pricey. And it's pretty

4:18

pricey, and this is coming from information

4:21

from the Human Milk Banking Association of

4:23

North America, which was formed in and

4:26

it seems like the pretty much the Cornerstone

4:28

milk Banking organization in

4:31

the US, and while it isn't FDA regulated,

4:34

they do a lot of testing

4:36

not only on the mothers who donate, but then

4:38

on the milk as well and pasteurized in a very

4:40

specific kind of way. It's an extensive process

4:43

and as a result, the milk is

4:45

not exactly cheap. It typically

4:48

goes four up to three three

4:51

dollars to four fifty per ounce.

4:53

And you think, oh, it's just a few bucks.

4:56

Well, if your infant is drinking

4:59

the average thirty ounces per day,

5:02

that is some pricing milk. It's like golden

5:05

milk. And insurance doesn't

5:07

cover this. Yeah, that's one of the next I think

5:09

fight. We'll see that milk banks try and uh

5:11

fight is getting insurance companies

5:13

to cover this. But as you said, these

5:16

studies are saying, we can't quite be sure

5:18

yet if all this anecdotal evidence that

5:20

breast milk is good for babies carries

5:22

on, if it's just don't or milk, or if it needs to come

5:24

straight from a woman's the mother's breast, and so

5:26

on and so forth, but the need is absolutely

5:29

there. Um. The Human Milk Bank Association

5:31

of North America h Jim Banna.

5:34

Um, really they're

5:36

running low on milk. They saw a nearly fourfold

5:39

increase in milk distribution from two thousand

5:41

to two thousand nine, But a lot of

5:43

the banks dotted around the country,

5:46

UM are running low. And

5:48

they're wondering whether these

5:51

milk banks are running low

5:53

because of the Internet

5:56

and something called milk swapping.

5:59

Yeah, let's say that you

6:01

have all this excess milk and it doesn't feel right

6:03

to you to ask some mother

6:05

of a premature infant to buy it for three

6:08

fifty announce and you don't want

6:10

to throw it away. You don't want to throw it away, and you

6:12

also don't like this idea of like shipping it up and mailing

6:14

it seems like a big castle. You

6:16

can turn to the internet, dial

6:19

up a website and you can find

6:21

hundreds of communities where women are swapping

6:23

milk among their own friends

6:26

and among their own towns. So you can

6:28

say, instead of shipping the soft where someone has

6:30

to buy it, I can give it to the baby next

6:32

door. Then this woman I are going to

6:34

have, you know, a bond. It builds friendships.

6:37

It's all free, and milk swaps

6:39

are sort of the the big thing going

6:42

on right now. Right A couple of the main groups

6:44

are eats on feats in milk

6:46

share, and I think we should also

6:48

note that people who women who donate to

6:51

the milk banks through the

6:53

Milk Bank Association in North America aren't

6:55

compensated. And it's similar

6:57

with the milk swap. It's like the recycle

7:00

thing. You just you're you're trading. I

7:02

know, I've got this great thing that women need. I can

7:05

give it to someone who needs it, whether

7:07

it's you know, a woman down the street who adopted a baby,

7:09

a woman who had surgery on her breasts

7:11

and can't produce milk. It's

7:13

a way to build community quarantities

7:16

women and to not have to go through all the runaround

7:18

that a milk bank would make you go through. And there's

7:20

also a really cool project called the

7:22

International Breast Milk Project that

7:25

sends UM breast milk abroad.

7:28

Is particularly to African mothers

7:30

because of the prevalence of HIV and

7:32

AIDS because HIV and AIDS

7:35

can transfer through breast

7:37

milk and formula will often

7:39

be mixed with unclean water. So

7:41

the International Breast Milk Project

7:44

provides these African mothers with

7:47

UM with breast milk that isn't that isn't changed

7:50

potentially with HIV and AIDS that will

7:52

then be passed onto their babies. Right. But

7:54

what the milk banks are saying is that, yeah, it's

7:56

great to give the breast milk to a neighbor.

7:58

It's wonderful that we want to donate breast

8:01

milk abroad. But the reason that their breast

8:03

milk costs three ounce is they're underwriting

8:05

all that testing that a donor

8:08

goes through. And so that's sort of the big controversies

8:10

that in a milk swap you don't have

8:12

to go through all that testing. You're

8:14

kind of trusting a woman who, yes, is breastfeeding

8:17

her own child, but you know, could

8:19

you possibly passing on some sort of disease

8:21

or infection to your own And in addition

8:23

just to the screening that mothers

8:26

who are donating to the milk banks have to go through,

8:28

there's also a pasteurization process

8:30

that will eliminate bacteria from

8:33

the breast milk, and then they will fur

8:35

their test samples for bacterial growth,

8:37

and then the milk will be sealed in four ounce glass

8:39

bottles and delivered frozen to a

8:42

milk bank so it's it's a much more

8:44

rigorous process. Yeah, so someone

8:46

are saying it's better for me just to be able to walk

8:49

down the street and give the breast milk to someone in

8:51

my community who needs it. And

8:54

as with most things involving breastfeeding, it's

8:56

kind of controversial. Should you milk bank, should you

8:58

milk swap um, It's it's

9:00

kind of a big debate right now in terms of what you should do with

9:02

all this excess milk, and perhaps one of the most

9:04

controversial options

9:06

of what to do with excess breast milk, should

9:09

you sell it? Sell it? Money's

9:11

gotta go. I mean, you've just had a baby, you can't

9:13

really work. Maybe maybe you can make

9:16

a lot of money. I mean, if it's fetching, if it's fetching

9:18

three bucks and ounce. There is a story

9:20

about this in Wired magazine and

9:22

it profiled one woman who is she was

9:24

a single mom. I think she was putting herself

9:26

through school. She discovered

9:29

that she could sell her breast milk online.

9:31

And she only an organic

9:33

diet, took care of herself, you know, it didn't smoke things

9:35

like that, and she made

9:38

twenty grand Yeah in a year.

9:41

I mean, I mean, that's enough for me to have a

9:43

baby,

9:46

But you gotta start questioning at this point.

9:48

I mean, so far I've talked about babies in Africa,

9:50

premature infants. It's

9:52

all very altruistic. All of a sudden, when you

9:55

start putting money on it, it it gets really kind

9:57

of creepy because there are a lot of men

9:59

apparently who just want to buy a breastcatres. There

10:01

are some sexual fetishes that go along with buying

10:03

breast milk and um. So, you

10:05

know, on the one hand, it's great that this one

10:08

was able to make so much money to put herself through school and support

10:10

her infant, but

10:12

it seems like the more money that's involved, the kind

10:14

of creepier it gets in terms

10:16

of of where the money is going and

10:18

how we're going to protect the process of woman breastfeeding

10:21

right, And I can understand the ethical quandaries

10:24

associated with selling your breast milk.

10:26

At the same time, to me, the

10:28

fact that there is a market for it

10:31

is indicative of

10:33

a the need that's not being met and also

10:36

the need for more maternal support

10:38

that isn't being meant that that a woman instead

10:40

of you know, is having to think about how she can make

10:42

ends meet to care for her child and is having to

10:45

sell her breast milk online. Very

10:47

true, except I'm thinking of a quote from Salon

10:49

Christian that said, once it's a product and

10:51

it's sellable, how do we protect

10:53

the process? The minute you turn breastfeeding

10:56

into a product, you're creating less of a culture that's

10:58

supporting the process. So, I mean that

11:00

makes some sense to me in terms of if it's if

11:02

it's only something that brings money to people. Uh,

11:05

well, we still have the laws that protect a woman's right to

11:07

have a lactation room, um, to build

11:09

a breastfeed in public. So it's very interesting.

11:12

And the Salon article I cited

11:14

was asking the question, would you

11:16

eat breast milk ice cream? Yes? The baby

11:19

Gaga I screamed that I'm sure a lot of you

11:21

all out there have heard about. Was what

11:23

country was he making this? And this wasn't in the

11:25

US. This guy

11:27

in London ice cream maker decided,

11:30

Hey, why don't I make some ice cream

11:33

with breast milk instead of cow's

11:35

milk? And he did, and he called it baby

11:37

Gaga, And at first

11:40

the food safety folks

11:43

over in the UK said, oh my goodness.

11:46

So they got pulled off. But then,

11:48

um, they're going to actually let him

11:51

make and sell this breast milk ice cream.

11:53

But now Lady Gaga's lawyers

11:55

are on them, which I would be far more frightened

11:58

of Lady Gaga's lawyers than food safe

12:00

jeanspectors. But another quote from that

12:02

article that stood out to me was from a woman who works with

12:04

the nonprofit Mother's Milk Bank in Austin,

12:07

and she writes that the reason maybe that people

12:09

are kind of um picked out by the idea

12:11

of eating breast milk, I s because let's admit, it's

12:13

not something everyone wants to eat necessarily

12:16

different. We have sort of taboos

12:18

about breast milk, I think in this country. Sure,

12:21

But she writes that that taboo exists for a

12:23

reason. So long as there were taboos,

12:25

they protected babies from the misappropriation

12:27

of milk by people who are bigger and stronger,

12:30

and who, being adults, could procure and process

12:32

other foods independently. So

12:34

it all goes back to if

12:36

we sell our breast milk, will the

12:39

premature infants get

12:41

the milk that they need, or you

12:43

know it will It becomes sort of a luxury

12:45

market for people who want the exotic experience

12:48

of drinking about breast milk. But I will

12:50

say I don't think

12:52

that a woman selling her breast milk on

12:54

her own is I mean, if we're talking

12:56

about better or worse, I mean, I

12:59

think that much better than say California

13:01

based company pro Lacta, which

13:04

is the first corporation to develop and sell

13:06

breast milk for a profit. Um

13:09

to me, that is the

13:12

negative direction that this could go in. Like,

13:15

yes, it would. It preserves the process

13:17

and the pasteurization and make

13:19

sure that everything is very clean in bacteria

13:22

free. But for instance, an

13:24

average ten weeks supply of the Prolacta

13:26

bioscience product will cost over

13:28

ten grand for baby, and

13:31

the mothers aren't compensated for it. So

13:35

it's tricky. It's tricky, And at this point, I'd

13:37

love to open it up and here, if we've got listeners

13:39

out there who have donated breast milk, who have gotten

13:42

breast milk donations, if you have worked

13:44

on a milk swap, what is your

13:46

relationship to don't our breast milk?

13:49

And should it be fine for women to sell their breast milk if

13:51

they want to? Let us know your thoughts, Mom stuff

13:54

at how stuff Works dot com is our email

13:56

address, and now we'll read a couple

13:58

of listener emails. I

14:02

have an email here from Aaron. It's about the Human

14:05

Trafficking podcast, and she writes, I

14:07

just wanted to let you guys know about an organization called

14:09

Raffa House. Rafa House is a group

14:11

of dedicated individuals that work toward free girls

14:14

that are trapped in sex trafficking in Southeast

14:16

Asia. The girls are taken to safe

14:18

houses and rehabilitated. They're also

14:20

taught different traits so that they can make money for themselves

14:22

or for their families without being involved in prostitution.

14:26

It's a very cool resource for everyone to look up

14:28

Rafa House. I've had an email

14:30

here from a Lana about the human Trafficking

14:32

episode, and she writes that

14:35

this is an issue dear to my heart and everyone should do

14:37

their part to protect other people. When I lived

14:39

in Los Angeles, a group of women I knew would go

14:41

around to massage parlors in any other place

14:44

that might be suspicious, investigate

14:46

in whatever ways they could. And I

14:48

know that Atlanta, where you and I are,

14:50

Molly, is a really big hub for human

14:53

trafficking. And yes, she is right states

14:55

trying to pass laws regarding

14:57

that, and she says there's some great resource

15:00

in groups that are putting a lot of energy into liberating

15:02

as many people as possible. And

15:04

they include International Justice

15:06

Mission, which is a lot of legal professionals

15:09

who are putting their skills to good use. And other

15:11

here in other countries, night Light

15:13

which is which works with a lot of women

15:15

and they have a lot of good information as well. And

15:17

then hand in Cloth. She says,

15:20

this is my favorite and I planned to go visit possibly

15:22

next summer. A woman started this business

15:24

is a way for women in Kolkata,

15:27

India to have an option other

15:29

than selling themselves. The women

15:31

learn a certain type of stitch

15:33

from their mothers and they stitch their stories into

15:35

every blanket that they make out of old stories.

15:39

They are beautiful and accessible way to support

15:42

women. So I

15:44

hope you find these interesting and continue to use your positions

15:46

to share the knowledge. And that's

15:49

what we aim to do. Share knowledge and share

15:51

knowledge with us. Mom Stuff

15:53

at how stuff works dot com is our email. If you'd like

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us. They're like us, leave a comment, interact with listeners

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You can also follow us over on Twitter at

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