Tips Tuesday

So here's a weird piece of advice for "Tips Tuesday"-sharing is caring, but don't buy your breast milk off of the internet without a good judicious screening. Strange as it may seem, there is new trend emerging where women are purchasing breast milk off of online networks such as craigslist and facebook. Some of you might be saying "gross" and some you might not see the problem with it. However, this "new" trend is not so "innovative", after all.

Women have been sharing their milk with each other for eons- haven't you heard of a "wet nurse" before? An ancient practice, wet nurses were extremely commonplace until contemporary societies were introduced to infant formula. Now that we have modern medicine and are more aware of the risks involved with sharing breast milk, it is best to use cautionary measures when buying milk from a "milk bank" or when purchasing online- afterall, this is not like buying a used Ikea dining room table.

The FDA recently sent out a warning stating that the "FDA recommends against feeding your baby breast milk acquired directly from individuals or through the Internet. When human milk is obtained directly from individuals or through the Internet, the donor is unlikely to have been adequately screened for infectious disease or contamination risk." Thus, if you are looking for a quick fix solution, it is best to go with powdered or pre-made formula.

If you are interested in purchasing someone else's breast milk for your child, it is best to screen the donor (to make sure that it is drug and nicotine free), request a blood test, and flash-pasturize the milk . Similar to the process in which blood and transplant donations work, you should take every precaution to make sure that your baby stays safe from harm.

Here's the good news- due to its growing popularity, the FDA is now going to research and publish their conclusions of this topic in the near future, so we will soon be able to accurately assess the risk vs. reward.

Speaking of rewards...who wants to win a free MM piece from the Target.com capsule collection?? All you have to do is go to www.mmtarget.com , let us know what your favorite 2 pieces are via "commenting" on our blog and you are golden!! Enter today!!!

Have a wonderful day:)

xoxo,

The Moody Mamas