A breast cancer survivor isn't letting a double mastectomy prohibit her from giving her new baby breast milk: Over two dozen moms have happily donated their breast milk to Brooklyn resident Eva van Dok Pinkley, according to the Daily News. She says, "What they are doing, it's not easy to do. I'm just stunned at the amount of trouble that they are going through for me. I think of them and what they have done and give thanks."
Pinkley tells the News that she got pregnant two months after the double mastectomy and she always knew she wanted her child to have breast milk: "Pinkley took to the Internet to research milk banks, milk donations, disease screening and milk pasteurization. She talked to doctors and lactation consultants, then started asking for donations at her yoga studio, through email listservs and through friends." Now, baby Oliver is just three weeks old and has been drinking "liquid gold" from "ongoing donors, one-time donors and soon-to-be moms" (Pinkley's husband picks it up from donors in the area and then stores it in the freezer). The donations seem especially generous when a month's supply of breast milk is going for $300-1200 on the Internet!
However, La Leche League, the organization that promotes breastfeeding around the world, generally discourages "cross-nursing," noting, "Babies of different ages require a specific composition of milk. Milk from the baby's own mother will provide the exact make-up the infant needs; another mother whose baby is not the same age may not provide the same components," but does tell LLL Leaders who are asked about cross-nursing to tell new mothers that donors "should be healthy, well-nourished and taking no medication... should be screened for tuberculosis, syphilis, hepatitis-associated antigen, cytomegalovirus, herpes virus, HIV and other infectious agents... should not smoke, drink alcohol, or consume large amounts of caffeinated or artificially sweetened beverages... [and her] own infant should be healthy, gaining well and free of all infections." We imagine La Leche League is not amused by human milk from cloned cows.
