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Breast milk bank supplies are running dry

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Contributed by: Eric J. Lubbers/YourHub.com on 3/11/2008

For 23 years, the Mother's Milk Bank at Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center in Denver has collected and distributed breast milk to needy infants across the country, but recently the well, so to speak, has started to go dry.

"The demand is about 14,000 ounces a month," said Laraine Lockhart, the manager of Mother's Milk Bank, "We need about 2,000 ounces more a month just to break even."

The bank, which was started with a handful of grants and the determination of one mother in 1984, is one of nine large-scale banks in the nation and supplies milk by perscription to pre-term, full term and other babies based on medical need, including a dairy-free category from mothers with no dairy in their diet.

"Every mother's milk is specially formulated for the stage that their baby is in," said Wanda Lewnard, the senior accountant for the bank, "So we match the milk to the term of the baby."

To become a donor, mothers with milk must go through a telephone screening and a series of blood tests to make sure the milk is safe.

"The whole thing is based on the blood bank system," Lockhart said, "We make sure that mothers don't smoke and aren't on any medications that could be passed to the child."

Donors are taught how to safely collect and freeze their milk and then they can deliver it to one of the "milk depots" the bank has set up in Fort Collins, Westminster, Boulder, Littleton, Greeley, Colorado Springs in addition to the bank itself in Denver.

Per year, only half of the average 600 applicants make it through the screening process to become donors, and the number is falling. Donation rates are up to the donors, but the bank stops accepting milk once the mother's child is over 10 months, so there is a very high turnover rate, Lockhart said.

"You can't synthesize this," said Lewnard, "There just isn't a medication that can replace it."

Interested donors can call the bank at 303-869-1888 to set up an appointment.

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