Minnesota moms encouraged to supplement with donor milk and not infant formula

A Minnesota hospital's human donor milk program has been expanded to include all infants who need to be supplemented, up from only high risk infants, after additional funding was received. Of the moms who are told they need to supplement, 80 per cent are chosing donor milk, says the maternity care centre clinical director at Woodwinds Health Campus in Woodbury, Minnesota. That makes sense - Minnesota has an 80 per cent breastfeeding initiation rate. I wonder if this program will succeed in improving the duration of mothers exclusively breastfeeding at 6 months. If moms are seeing health care providers walk their talk by encouraging supplementation with human milk instead of infant formula right at birth, will it translate into better duration rates?

Moms choosing donor milk at Woodwinds | Woodbury Bulletin | Woodbury, Minnesota: ...Over the last four months, Woodwinds has been offering donor human milk to all newborns whose families choose to use it.

The program began about three years ago but was only available to at-risk infants who needed donor milk to grow, said Jeanette Schwartz, clinical director of maternity care center at Woodwinds.

After a donation was made to the HealthEast Foundation specifically for the donor milk program, it was made available to all families.

Then the use of it spiked.

“They really do want this, they want to try to avoid using artificial milk,” Schwartz said. “There are some risks to artificial formula and they just want to have this option available to them.”...