Comments on: Informal Milk Sharing in the United States

By: Shell

Shell — Sat, 14 Jan 2017 05:53:45 +0000

Good thing there is also INFORMED MILK SHARING: )

Most PAM’s families do use a bit or formality and through most networks they have access to safety information to help guide their decisions.

To really help families outside of the self-regulated milk bank systems, providers could expand their communication to acknowledge these self-empowered facets of infant/child feeding.

By: Lani

Lani — Fri, 02 Sep 2016 00:51:02 +0000

We are very pleased that Dr. Spatz has addressed informal milk sharing from the perspective of informed decision making. Too often we have found that health care providers and institutions prefer to deny that the practice is happening, or hide behind a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ approach, neither of which allow for honest conversations. To address the issue Perinatal Services BC (Canada) has just published a practice resource for health care providers on informal milk sharing http://www.perinatalservicesbc.ca/.

Individual decision-making regarding milk sharing is based on balancing the risks and the benefits as defined by each family, as well as how these stack up against the alternative, which is usually commercial infant formula. For the health care provider, consideration of informal milk sharing involves both ethical principles and issues of legal rights and liability. Discussions involving informal milk sharing should be based on the guiding principles of patient-centered care, informed and shared decision-making, and harm reduction.

The purpose of the document is to provide the health care provider with the essential knowledge and tools to facilitate an informed discussion and decision-making process. Included in this resource are the following tools:
1. Infant Feeding Options Decision Support Tool (DST)
2. Supplementation with Unpasteurized Donor Human Milk – Talking Points
3. Sample Policy on the Use of Unpasteurized Donor Human Milk
4. Sample Acknowledgement of Risk Form for the Use of Unpasteurized Donor Human Milk
5. Family Information Handout: Informal (Peer-to-Peer) Human Milk Sharing

We welcome feedback and comments on the document. Please email [email protected] and enter in the subject line ‘Informal Milk Sharing’.

Lani Wittmann, RN, MN, IBCLC Perinatal Clinical Educator, BC Women’s Hospital
and the Informal Milk Sharing Work Group:
Lea Geiger, RN, BSN, IBCLC Provincial BFI Coordinator, PSBC
Meggie Ross, RN, MN, IBCLC Public Health Maternity Program, Interior Health
Swati Scott, IBCLC Dietitian, Island Health
Ingrid Tilstra, IBCLC La Leche League Canada Leader and BC Patient
Voices Representative

By: Meggie Ross

Meggie Ross — Thu, 01 Sep 2016 16:50:24 +0000

Great article – Health care providers need better knowledge regarding informal milk sharing, otherwise the response is often a simple ‘I don’t recommend it’ or a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ situation that prevents an open shared informed decision making process. Perinatal Services BC has a new toolkit that offers information and guidance to assist a conversation with families about this option. http://www.perinatalservicesbc.ca/Documents/Guidelines-Standards/HealthPromotion/InformalMilkSharing_PracticeResource.pdf

By: Blair Thurston

Blair Thurston — Sun, 14 Aug 2016 08:44:15 +0000

Very interesting read, especially being pregnant with my first child.

By: George Kent

George Kent — Sat, 13 Aug 2016 02:30:35 +0000

I advocate expanding the reach of human milk banking to provide human milk to infants who are not critically ill. It is available at http://www2.hawaii.edu/~kent/ExtendingtheReachofHumanMilkBanking.docx

Comments welcome.

George Kent
[email protected]