HuffPo: Trevor MacDonald: Thank You, Facebook, For Feeding My Baby

A must read! Transgender parenting, the relative risk of feeding infant formula vs milksharing, conflict about Facebook's capacity to do good, community bonds that result in women seeking donor milk from two men with a freezer full...

Trevor MacDonald: Thank You, Facebook, For Feeding My Baby  

Huffington Post  Posted: 05/11/2012 2:00 am 

...A few years ago, before the existence of HM4HB on Facebook, our baby would have been primarily formula-fed. Ironically, for many months the social networking site has also been removing comparatively modest breastfeeding photos from members' walls due to supposed indecency. I can only say that I am left with a love-hate relationship with the Facebook empire -- it is the frame that both supports and attempts to limit our human milk sharing engine....

Human milk and the Handmaid's Tale

More from Australia on the discovery of stem cells in human milk. And again, as I noted in November 2011, the discovery, funded in part by breast pump maker Medela*, is framed as "a solution to the ethical dilemma of using human embryonic stem cells..." The article says the only way to obtain embryonic stem cells is to harvest them from a six-day-old human embryo, destroying a potential human life in the process. Researcher Foteini Hassiotou says:

"Whereas breast milk can be accessed non-invasively, there's plenty of it, you don't have to do any surgery."

Striking illustrations by Anna and Elena Balbusso
accompany a new Folio edition of Atwood's
The Handmaid's Tale - see the full series in
The Guardian, Jan 23, 2012 

This discovery is not a solution to an ethical dilemma - it offers an ethical tradeoff - replace the harvesting of stem cells from embryos with a harvest from mothers. Human milk is said to be a scarce resource as milk banks struggle to meet the increased demand for preemies, some of whom will die if they do not receive donor human milk. Where does stem cell research fit in the question of who should receive milk first when there isn't enough to meet the need?

Milksharing advocates dispute that human milk is a scarce resource, saying instead it is a renewable, sustainable resource. They say mothers were dumping milk down the drain before milksharing started to thrive thanks to social networking. But will human milk remain abundantly available for babies if mothers are offered financial incentives to donate for stem cell harvesting?

Why does Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale keep flitting through my mind as I think about the ethics of harvesting breast milk from Twenty-Something moms in order to treat heart disease and diabetes - preventable, lifestyle illnesses that are about to swamp our healthcare system as the Baby Boomers age?

Sourcing stem cells from breast milk - Foteini Hassiotou › Meet a Scientist (ABC Science):
Stem cells discovered in human milk can turn into any kind of tissue, explains Dr Foteini Hassiotou.
By Abbie Thomas
Dr Foteini Hassiotou (University of Western Australia)

A solution to the ethical dilemma of using human embryonic stem cells to treat human diseases could be staring us in the face.
Five years ago, Dr Foteini Hassiotou was part of a research team, the Hartmann Human Lactation Research Group at the University of Western Australia, which discovered that human breast milk contains what appear to be stem cells. These cells can potentially turn into many different types of cells, and offer staggering potential for treating a huge range of human diseases....

*Note: This post builds on a blog post written in November 2011 about Medela's funding of this breastmilk/stem cell research, and was edited in November 2012 to make explicit Medela's involvement in funding this research.

Second donor human milk distribution site opens in New York State

New York State now has a second distribution site for donor human milk. Phelps Memorial receives and distributes pasteurized milk shipped from the WakeMed Mothers' Milk Bank in Raleigh, North Carolina, which is the only HMBANA milk bank licensed in New York State. The storage facility at Phelps in Sleepy Hollow was made possible by a donation from the Westchester/Putman/Rockland Consortium. The Phelps Memorial facility joins the  community-based Hudson Valley Milk Bank which also receives milk from WakeMed, although it is not listed as a developing milk bank on HMBANA's website.

Mothers' Milk Available at Phelps Hospital - Pleasantville-Briarcliff Manor, NY Patch: Mothers' Milk Available at Phelps Hospital

At a cost of $5 an ounce, human milk is now available for newborns at the hospital.

May 4, 2012

The following is an announcement from Phelps Memorial Hospital Center:

Phelps Memorial Hospital Center has recently been licensed by the New York State Department of Health to receive, store and issue donor human milk.. 

... Phelps will obtain milk from one of two facilities, WakeMed, located in Raleigh, North Carolina, that processes the milk, or Hudson Valley Milk Bank in Irvington, that also obtains milk from WakeMed. The milk is pasteurized at WakeMed and shipped to Phelps in a frozen state....

Westchester Putnam Rockland Lactation Consortium donated money to purchase the freezer, temperature probe and an initial supply of milk. Phelps plans to apply for a grant and will assume any additional costs to continue the program.... more

USDA says cow's milk doesn't transmit BSE, is it time to review HMBANA guidelines for human milk donation?

In the wake of the latest case of BSE to be found in a dairy cow, the USDA is rushing to reassure US residents of the safety cow's milk, citing WHO research that says bovine milk doesn't transmit BSE.

At a time when the donor human milk banks are pleading for donors citing shortage due to increased demand from NICUs for donor human milk, should there be an urgent review of human milk banking guidelines that exclude potential milk donors due to concerns about prion transmission? HMBANA says donors are not suitable if they have been "in the United Kingdom for more than 3 months or in Europe for more than 5 years since 1980." It's not clear on HMBANA's website, but that restriction is due to concern about prion disease transmission via human milk.

UK and EU moms can and do donate to their own milk banks -- they wouldn't have any donor human milk if this restriction were applied in their own countries. And yet we would reject their milk if they moved to the US or Canada.

I have heard donor milk bank representatives say the number is small and not a big contributor to their donor shortage, but we don't really have any idea how many potential donors are rejected, or don't even bother to apply to donate due to this restriction.

Why not lift it?

I don't think this guideline gives US and Canadian donors or recipients much confidence in HMBANA. I think it just makes milk banks look a little silly to savvy lactating moms who learn of the contradiction.

Worse, it contributes to the notion that human milk is dangerously disease-ridden.

USDA confirms 4th mad cow case in US
By Lauran Neergaard

updated 4/24/2012 4:05:14 PM ET

The first new case of mad cow disease in the U.S. since 2006 has been discovered in a dairy cow in California, but health authorities said Tuesday the animal never was a threat to the nation's food supply.

The infected cow, the fourth ever discovered in the U.S., was found as part of anAgriculture Department surveillance program that tests about 40,000 cows a year for the fatal brain disease.

No meat from the cow was bound for the food supply, said John Clifford, the department's chief veterinary officer.

"There is really no cause for alarm here with regard to this animal," Clifford told reporters at a hastily convened press conference.

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), is fatal to cows and can cause a fatal human brain disease in people who eat tainted beef. The World Health Organization has said that tests show that humans cannot be infected by drinking milk from BSE-infected animals.

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