Not donating breastmilk, selling breastmilk!

[feedindy]

https://abcnews.go.com/US/moms-sell-excess-breast-milk-cash-internet/story?id=13768179

wow I knew you could donate milk, but I never knew I could sell it!

this was an interesting story so I thought I'd share it. Wow with my freezer stash I am sitting on a goldmine! I personally wouldn't sell my breastmilk because what I pump I am saving for my LO. But I am surprised some people are getting paid $2 per ounce or so. Has anyone else heard of this? Pretty cool.

 

[special_kala]

Seems a bit wrong to me. I would donate but never sell it.

 

[austinsmom]

Yeah... the thought that my milk could be sold breastmilk to someone with a milk fetish just rubs me the wrong way. I'd rather donate it to a milk bank.

 

[Lawhra]

Interesting. I'd love to donate my milk but if I had enough to do both I wouldn't be opposed to selling it. I don't see why not.

 

[DarlingMe]

There are websites that you can sell on! I could probably pump an extra 30 oz a day with some effort and quit my job! I dont see anything wrong with it. Others pay for formula. The woman who is pumping and selling her milk has to pay for storage bags and storage area, electricty, extra food to fill extra calories used, time pumping, replacement parts for the pump, etc. It is wonderful that people are able to donate their milk and a shame that BM is so costly but I would imagine the hassle of donating milk in the US is also a hassle to obtain milk in the US.

 

[midori1999]

I personally don't think it is ethical to sell breastmilk and think it should always be donated for free.

People selling their breastmilk for money means they are not donating it to milk banks where it will be used to save the lives of premature babies.

All infants should have access to breastmilk ideally, but most babies can survive on formula whereas formula puts premmies at higher risk of death and the emotional and practical issues involved in having a baby in NICU, especially long term, mean lots of Mother's of premmies find keeping up expressing too hard.

 

[DarlingMe]

Should doctors and nurses who save lives also donate their time? I think that it is asking a lot for a woman to donate her resources & time away from her own child to pump and EXPECT her to donate it and make someone feel guilty for it. That mother may have no other means to work and bring money into the house. Selling the BM may be saving her own child's life by putting food on the table and a roof over thier head. Maybe insurance companies should start paying for BM as they would a life saving medication in those
cases. Women get paid For being surrogates and egg donations. Wet nurses got paid. I dont expect anyone, especially a stranger to do something like that for free!

 

[freckleonear]

I don't agree with selling breastmilk either. The safety of private milk sharing is based on trust and complete honesty, so paying for breastmilk increases the risks. Introducing money into the equation could also negatively affect the donor's own child.

 

[midori1999]

Should doctors and nurses who save lives also donate their time? I think that it is asking a lot for a woman to donate her resources & time away from her own child to pump and EXPECT her to donate it and make someone feel guilty for it. That mother may have no other means to work and bring money into the house. Selling the BM may be saving her own child's life by putting food on the table and a roof over thier head. Maybe insurance companies should start paying for BM as they would a life saving medication in those
cases. Women get paid For being surrogates and egg donations. Wet nurses got paid. I dont expect anyone, especially a stranger to do something like that for free!

Until I becamse unable to donate breastmilk due to repeated and recurrent mastitis and a currently undiagnosed problem with one breast, I was already pumping milk ready to be donated once I had passed the screening process. I would have also continued to donate milk for as long as possible. All for free and using my own resources and even including driving the milk to the milk bank an hours drive away as they could not collect it from me. All at my own expense and my time (and milk) given for free. I am not alone in doing that, nor exceptional. No-one that donates milk to milk banks in the UK is paid for it, yet the cost of it to NICU's is approx £100 per litre due to the processing costs.

So no, I don't think it is a lot to ask a woman to do this, not at all.

No-one in the UK is paid to donate eggs or to be surrogates either, it is illega and neither have I ever heard of anyone being paid to wet nurse, but I do know of cases where it's been done for free.

I think Mothers selling breastmilk as it is their only means of income is potentially one of the worst scenarios for doing it, for the reasons freckleonear outlines below.

Why shouldn't someone give their time for free, or even their money if they can afford to? Isn't that how charities work and function?

I don't agree with selling breastmilk either. The safety of private milk sharing is based on trust and complete honesty, so paying for breastmilk increases the risks. Introducing money into the equation could also negatively affect the donor's own child.

Very good points.

 

[Ozzieshunni]

There are guys with baby fetishes that will pay women to nurse them.

 

[summer rain]

I don't think it should be sold xx

 

[feedindy]

Does anyone know how it works with milk banks?..

Like if there is a preemie in NICU, is it free/ covered by insurance to get milk from a milk bank? Then how long would it be free (if it is free)? The video mentioned that milk banks were expensive to buy from which is why I am asking. It sounded as if this was a way cheaper option than getting milk from a milk bank, but I am not sure.

I don't see anything wrong with selling it. But I guess people will have different opinions with just the idea of donating to charity vs selling.

 

[zolly786]

i think it depends on where you live and what you're used to.

in canada, we are not allowed to sell eggs or sperm. we are not allowed to sell blood. we are not allowed to be paid for being a surrogate- we are compensated for loss of income, maternity clothing and whatnot, but not actual payment for carrying the baby.

so it makes sense for us to not support the selling of breastmilk.


i have no idea how it works with insurance- we don't pay for hospital stays here. but to get breastmilk from the bank when you aren't hospitalized is next to impossible. instead, people meet on message boards and facebook and donate.

 

[cutie4evr01]

It's not easy to donate in the US. I have over 800oz in my freezer already and my baby is only 2 months old, but there are no milk banks near me. I found a place I could ship it to but they will use components of the breastmilk to make their own concoction to give preemie babies (they way I understood the article, it sounds like a human-milk based formula as opposed to cow's milk). While this is nice, I'd prefer if someone's baby was drinking all of my milk, not just a very small percentage of it (whichever "components" they plan to use. Personally I don't see anything wrong with selling milk if you have some to spare. Continuing to pump just to make money off it seems like a different issue to me, but I think if you have spare and can't find anywhere to donate it, why not sell it?

 

[mamalove]

If i had to choose beteen paying for formula or BM i would rather pay for BM. However,i never heard of buying/selling it but i don't think it's wrong at all.

 

[cheese lover]

There are insurance companies that are starting to pay for breast milk from a bank but I don't know much about it.
I can't explain why but selling breast milk just feels wrong to me. I saw that video about people selling milk and it just didn't seem right. I'm a milk donor for the Iowa milk bank which is non-profit. They pasteurize the milk and freeze it until they distribute it. What is hard about becoming a milk donor? Is it just not having a milk bank nearby? The actual process for me was quite simple, an easy phone interview, written interview and a blood test. I also had to get "permission" from my Dr. and my LO's pediatrician. It took about a month but only because I didn't push to get things done and they'll take milk from before I became a certified donor.
In the past 3 months I've collected 84 oz for donation.

 

[Veryv]

Should doctors and nurses who save lives also donate their time? I think that it is asking a lot for a woman to donate her resources & time away from her own child to pump and EXPECT her to donate it and make someone feel guilty for it. That mother may have no other means to work and bring money into the house. Selling the BM may be saving her own child's life by putting food on the table and a roof over thier head. Maybe insurance companies should start paying for BM as they would a life saving medication in those
cases. Women get paid For being surrogates and egg donations. Wet nurses got paid. I dont expect anyone, especially a stranger to do something like that for free!

Until I becamse unable to donate breastmilk due to repeated and recurrent mastitis and a currently undiagnosed problem with one breast, I was already pumping milk ready to be donated once I had passed the screening process. I would have also continued to donate milk for as long as possible. All for free and using my own resources and even including driving the milk to the milk bank an hours drive away as they could not collect it from me. All at my own expense and my time (and milk) given for free. I am not alone in doing that, nor exceptional. No-one that donates milk to milk banks in the UK is paid for it, yet the cost of it to NICU's is approx £100 per litre due to the processing costs.

So no, I don't think it is a lot to ask a woman to do this, not at all.

No-one in the UK is paid to donate eggs or to be surrogates either, it is illega and neither have I ever heard of anyone being paid to wet nurse, but I do know of cases where it's been done for free.

I think Mothers selling breastmilk as it is their only means of income is potentially one of the worst scenarios for doing it, for the reasons freckleonear outlines below.

Why shouldn't someone give their time for free, or even their money if they can afford to? Isn't that how charities work and function?

I don't agree with selling breastmilk either. The safety of private milk sharing is based on trust and complete honesty, so paying for breastmilk increases the risks. Introducing money into the equation could also negatively affect the donor's own child.

Very good points.

the mother theresa/high and mighty act is a bit over the top.. it is a personal right and choice if they want to sell or donate their milk and who is anyone else to judge?? That kind of logic is wonderful in dreamland, but here in the real world farmers charge for their produce why is this any different? Besides that, I know I for one DON'T have the extra resources to be buying storage bags, shipping out milk and or gas money to donate my milk, not to mention the time i would rather spend the "hours" driving on time with my own child IF i had any extra hours apart from working/taking care of a new baby/family-which I certainly don't! On a side note, i found this post interesting because i have recently looked into donating to a local hospital (you go in and pump) but its certainly not my business if anyone else is wishing to sell or even simply be reimburssed for their expenses, and looking into donating does not make me any better than anyone else.

 

[T-Bex]

There are guys with baby fetishes that will pay women to nurse them.

Someone give me their number; Christmas is coming up, and I'm skint! I have plenty, and I can't donate!

 

[lisaf]

They stopped letting people be compensated for blood donations because they found people had an incentive to lie about the screening questions. Which is also probably why milk banks do not pay for the milk, its donation-only. I can understand that, but when I donate blood, I do think that it would be really nice to be compensated for my time/effort and I know I would donate more often if I had a slight incentive.


I wouldn't qualify to donate because I take a few medications, but there are women who would love to have my breastmilk, even with the medications I'm on. I donate privately, but I would love to make some extra money off of it. I have to pump more than my guy eats right now because if I try to drop the one pump that doesn't correllate to his feeding times, my supply drops too much and I work so I can't just let him nurse and regulate my supply properly. I really really hate that pumping session so much that it would be nice to be paid back for my effort, lol. I have daycare costs etc that I could really use some help with!
I get eczema from having to wash pump parts in addition to the other costs and wear on your body someone mentioned.

 

[lisaf]

looked at the site they mentioned in the article.. .no idea what this guy wants to do with the milk, lol If it was just a fetish thing, why would he specify over a year lactating? hmmm
"Needing some of your breast milk. Fresh frozen is fine. Would like to find someone that is in there 9 plus month of production. Ideally over a year lactating. If you can provide any amount contact me. Not needing gallons. Just a reliable recurring source. Just a business deal. Tell me what you have. And we will go from there. Thanks"