An ongoing baby formula shortage is placing a spotlight on formula alternatives in the United States. One substitute that is becoming increasingly available in Wisconsin is donated human milk.
Mothers' Milk Bank of the Western Great Lakes has collected milk from moms wishing to donate their surplus supply since 2016. The nonprofit organization screens its milk for pathogens before pasteurizing it and distributing it to milk bank dispensaries and hospitals around Illinois and Wisconsin.
According to Susan Urbanski, project manager for the milk bank, which collects donations at "depot" sites across the two states, around three-quarters of the donated milk goes to infants who are receiving care in neonatal intensive care units, while the rest of the supply goes toward families in need of supplemental milk.
Donated milk is a safe and nutritious formula alternative
The milk bank's rising profile has coincided with a nationwide shortage of baby formula that has now stretched for months in the United States. Urbanski told Here & Now that they have seen an increase in demand and supply, so while they have more patients that are currently looking for milk, they have more donor mothers who have answered the call and who are coming forward to be able to provide that milk to families in need.
According to Dr. Anne Eglash, a clinical professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, donated milk is a safe and nutritious formula alternative for families who cannot supply their own milk for their babies.
Eglash has long been a proponent of mothers breastfeeding their kids through her medical practice at UW Health, where she leads the healthcare system's lactation clinic. Her advocacy for breastfeeding started in the early 1990s and eventually led her to help organize donations of surplus milk in Wisconsin. Donations were first routed through a milk bank in Ohio before the more recent formation of Mothers' Milk Bank of the Western Great Lakes.
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Human milk has many health benefits
The milk bank's main facilities are in the Chicago suburbs, but Eglash said a preexisting network of milk depots in Wisconsin was crucial to the initial success of the nonprofit organization.
In addition to the milk depots, where donations are dropped off, the milk bank hosts a growing number of dispensaries around Wisconsin where families in need can pick up donated milk after it has been pasteurized, including in Green Bay, Eau Claire, Sturgeon Bay, Madison, and the Milwaukee suburbs.
Eglash serves as the medical director of the milk bank, and she said the health benefits of human milk are clear, particularly for infants born prematurely. According to a study posted in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), human milk helps prevent a type of gut inflammation commonly affecting premature infants called necrotizing enterocolitis.
