Human milk banks + milk sharing

If you have a prematurely-born baby, please talk about donor milk with your neonatologist or your hospital's breastfeeding support professional, who are best placed to help you access the kind of donor milk which is appropriate for your particularly vulnerable little one. This page is written for parents of healthy, term babies.

Are you able to access milk from your local human milk bank (or donate to it if you have plenty of milk)?

The first and by far safest place to look for donor human milk when your own milk supply is not enough to meet your baby's needs is from a milk bank. This is because our milk banks are best able to best regulate the safety of the donated milk, due to their blood screening, milk testing, and pasteurising processes.

There are not enough human milk banks, and not enough donor milk available for those that exist.

If you have an ample supply of breast milk for your baby, you might consider donating to your local human milk bank. In Australia, the Mothers Milk Bank Charity is found here and the Red Cross Milk Bank is found here.

Hopefully, there will be similar milk banks operating near where you live.

Some women explore the human milksharing networks found in social media

Unfortuantely, donated milk through milk banks may be inaccessible or out of reach for you financially.

If you have an otherwise healthy, term baby, you might find that you are interested in exploring local milksharing networks. However, there are risks involved in using privately sourced donor milk, which are carefully acknowledged and discussed by milksharing networks such as Eats on Feets. You might consider talking to your GP about donor milk screening and testing.

• You can find the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine's 2017 Position Statement on Informal Milk Sharing for the Term Healthy Infant here.

• You can find information about Eats on Feets and its many local community networks around the world, connected by social media, here.

Sharing milk within your family or with friends you love and trust

The critical issue to consider if you are interested in receiving shared milk from another woman is, once again, the safety of the milk both from the perspective of storage practices and, most importantly, the risk of blood-born or other infections.

Informal milk-sharing within families or close friends still occurs today, perhaps more often than we think, through the sharing of expressed breast milk or from cross-feeding. Cross-feeding is when another lactating woman breastfeeds a baby who isn't her own, in response to the baby's mother's request and consent.

It's quite common for a parent to breastfeed or chestfeed their baby, even though that parent didn't give birth to their baby. This is not an example of cross-feeding - it's parental breast or chestfeeding.

From a cross-cultural and evolutionary perspective, the woman who found herself unable to meet her baby's needs from her own breasts alone was able to continue providing human milk to her baby, through cross-feeding of the baby by those other lactating women who cared about her. For example, throughout human history grandmothers have commonly re-lactated and helped breastfeed their grandchildren, a practice which continues in some parts of the world today. The World Health Organisation acknowledges how important this kind of cross-feeding can be in contexts of food insecurity here.

Whilst 20th century prejudices have considered these practices unacceptable or worse, these prejudices are not consistent with millenia of cultural and evolutionary practices. You might be a person who feels there is a place for this kind of generosity towards your baby from other women who care deeply for you or love you.

The legitimate concern in our complex 21st century environments is about safety, not morality, and in particular about safety from viruses which are potentially transmitted through breast milk. Although these occur rarely, it's devastating if your baby is the one who is affected.

No-one should be shamed for participating in milk-sharing, and no-one should be coerced into accepting or participating in milk-sharing. This will be a personal decision which you and your family may find yourselves weighing up.