Milk-sharing was something I never in a million years thought I would do. But here I am, with an abundant milk supply and an over-flowing freezer getting ready to donate my freezer stash of breast milk for the fourth time.
Back before I made my first donation, I went back and forth on whether or not to do it. If I saved it all up, I could stop nursing Reese early and she could just use what’s in the freezer until her tummy could handle regular milk. But then I thought about it some more and realized I didn’t want to be done nursing Reese, even if I was projecting my thoughts and feelings on the matter months into the future. Not to mention, I just still wasn’t…sure. I may be a bit granola, but was I that granola?
Quite a while back {like, years before I was pregnant with Reese, but after I was done nursing Rylee}, a friend from high school/facebook friend had mentioned something about Eats on Feets, a milk-sharing something or other. I liked their facebook page, then went about my business. Once I realized I had too much extra milk in my freezer, i started looking at their page. I figured I’d be a pretty good candidate for milk sharing…I don’t smoke. I rarely drink, and when I do it’s after I’m done feeding/pumping for the day. I’m dairy limited, due to the fact that Reese’s sensitive tummy can’t handle it when I drink milk. The page creeping continued For a couple of weeks. I’d read posts from moms requesting help for their little ones, but I was never “called” to reach out or make a connection.
Then one day I saw a post from a dad requesting milk for his son that was just a few weeks old. I took a closer look and realized that I knew the baby’s mom. That was apparently the push I needed. I sent her a message through Facebook.
Since then, I’ve donated to her twice, and getting ready for a third. When I traveled to SanFran a couple of months ago, I connected with a local mama via the Eats on Feets NoCal chapter and left my milk at the hotel’s front desk for her to pick up. And in just a few weeks I’m headed to Arizona and will be sending all my milk home with Brandy to help build a freezer stash for little Ollie.
Mamas utilize milk sharing for various reasons. Sometimes a mama may be going through a medical procedure and her milk supply is low. Sometimes a mama just can’t produce enough and needs to supplement in order to feed her baby. Sometimes a mama had her baby prematurely and she’s struggling to produce milk for her baby. Sometimes a mama just isn’t able to produce milk at all, tries to give her baby formula and the baby has trouble digesting the formula.
You might think its totally weird. Or gross. If I’m being totally honest, if I think about it too much, I still kind of get weirded out by it. But something changed inside me along the way and the health and well being of babies is more important to me.
If you’re interested in learning more about milk sharing, I encourage you to check out Eats on Feets. There are chapters all over the world connecting moms with an abundance of milk to babies that need it.
Milk sharing isn’t for everyone. And that’s fine with me. To be honest, I don’t care what (formula vs. your own breastmilk vs. “borrowed” breastmilk) and/or how (bottle vs. breast vs. a combo) you feed your baby as long as you’re doing what’s right for you and your family and that sweet baby of yours is getting fed. Period.
