A medical researcher at New York's Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Rebecca Powell, Ph.D., thinks that breast milk could protect against the coronavirus.
Dr. Powell is Looking for Breast Milk Donors
A human milk immunologist, Dr. Powell, posted on her social media a request for lactating mothers to donate breast milk so that she could study its healing powers.
In her post, Powell asks healthy, lactating women from New York City if they own a breast pump and if they are comfortable expressing breast milk not only for their babies. She said mothers who answer yes are eligible to participate in her breast milk research study.
Powell is looking for hundreds of samples that are coming from mothers living in New York City for her research because the said city is the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the US.
As reported by VICE News, Powell said that many lactating women are contracting the virus and would be ready and willing to donate their breast milk. She said this based on the hundreds of people who already sent her emails saying that they are eager to donate their breast milk. Many of them have said that they are highly suspected of having contracted the virus.
She added that donors are just around the corner and she believes that they should not be overlooked.
Why Use Breast Milk?
One of the main reasons why health experts are insisting mothers to breastfeed their babies, especially for the first few months is because there are multiple antibodies found in breast milk.
When these antibodies work together with the immune cells, they can produce powerful pathogen-killing functions that when passed onto the newborn, it could protect them from diseases such as chickenpox or measles during the first few months of their life.
Blood antibodies of patients who recovered from the coronavirus are being studied. The aim is to see if they can treat COVID-19 infection. However, breastmilk antibodies could be given the same attention too. Vibe reports that there are no studies at present that focus on whether breast milk could cure MERS, SARS, or influenza.
Powell would be willing to give donors $5 for every ounce of breast milk that healthy lactating women in New York City would donate. She is also willing to accept any donation via mail from outside of New York City.
The researcher also said that it is unfortunate that there were not many studies done to breast milk antibodies, not even to well-studied viruses such as SARS, MERS, and flu.
