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AN ARTICLE HOSTED BY IMPREGNORIUM.NET DONOR BREAST MILK
By ERIN JORDAN
Iowa City, Ia. — Ann Tvedte needed special help when her twins, Karina and Matthew, were born six weeks early. She had not yet started to produce breast milk, but she and her husband, John, wanted to provide their newborns with the benefits of a mother's milk. Help arrived in 4-ounce bottles of donated breast milk from the Mothers' Milk Bank of Iowa. "It really counteracted the fact that they were premature," Ann Tvedte said. Pediatricians and lactation specialists agree a mother's breast milk is the best food for her baby. When a mother's milk isn't available, donated breast milk can nourish a baby and protect the immune system better than formula, said Jean Drulis, founder and director of the Mothers' Milk Bank of Iowa. The bank, one of nine in North America, has provided donated breast milk to more than 325 babies at University Hospitals since it started almost three years ago. Milk is available by prescription to premature infants, adopted babies, babies born with immunologic defects and babies whose mothers cannot produce milk for a variety of reasons. "It's very rare that a parent will decline," Drulis said. A new grant from the University of Iowa will help the bank expand its reach across the state, in part, by paying to send a week's supply of breast milk home with babies who received donor milk at University Hospitals. The milk bank concept is centuries old. Wet nurses, or women who breast-feed other women's babies, were honored by ancient Egyptians, and many middle- and upper-class Europeans through the 1700s hired women to breast-feed their children. Early milk banks in the United States closed in the 1980s because of fears HIV would be transmitted through breast milk, Drulis said. These banks reopened and others - including the U of I program - launched with new procedures to pasteurize the milk, killing bacteria and viruses. Donors also go through a screening process similar to donating blood. At the Mother's Milk Bank of Iowa, milk of three to 10 donors is pooled and poured into 4-ounce glass bottles. The bottles of milk are heated to 62.5 degrees for 30 minutes, a process that kills germs but preserves nutritional and immune system benefits, Drulis said. The milk is then frozen until needed. The Tvedte twins needed donor milk just hours after their births by Caesarean section on April 27. "It took three days for my milk to come in, so we used donor milk," Ann Tvedte said. Matthew, who weighed 3 pounds, 9 ounces, and Karina, born at 4 pounds, 2.5 ounces, stayed in the neonatal intensive care unit for two and three weeks, respectively. They were fed the breast milk through tiny tubes through their noses. When Tvedte returned to work this summer, her milk production dropped. But her babies needed more milk than ever, she said. "There was lots of pressure I was putting on myself to have enough milk to help them thrive," she said. Tvedte asked Drulis whether she could buy donated milk to supplement the breast milk she pumped each day. The answer was yes, milk was available to outpatients, too. "It was such a weight off me to find out I could use the Mother's Milk Bank milk," Tvedte said. Milk bank donors, who are not paid, are asked to contribute at least 200 ounces of breast milk during the first year of their children's lives - something not every mother can do, Drulis said. "Many, many women have enough milk for their own babies, but no extra," she said. Sixty-two nursing mothers have contributed milk this year, and 117 women have donated since the program started. Courtney Stubblefield, a 26-year-old mother of three from Des Moines, decided to donate milk after her daughter, Ciomara, was born in February. Stubblefield knows there's a need. "My first child was a NICU baby because of complications," she said. "I had plenty of milk, but I saw lots of moms who didn't." NICU, or neonatal intensive care unit, babies are usually premature or need special attention. Stubblefield pumps breast milk every afternoon when her children nap and freezes it until she can make a trip to Iowa City. "I don't like needles, so I would never be a blood donor. This is a way to give in that same way," she said. The milk bank bills insurance companies or families $3.60 per ounce of breast milk. The fee doesn't cover the cost of running the program, Drulis said, but she expects someday it will be self-supporting. Drulis would like to see more insurance companies cover donated breast milk as a prescription, which should reduce long-term costs because babies fed human milk are healthier. That's true of Matthew and Karina Tvedte, their mother said. At 6 months, the rosy-cheeked twins have more than tripled their birth weights. "Now they're on the growth curve," Tvedte said. "I think that's because of the breast milk." |
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