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State’s 1st breast milk ‘depot’ opens
FortWayne.com (Journal Gazette) ^ | Sep. 24, 2006 | Assoicated Press

Posted on 09/24/2006 3:38:13 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o

BLOOMINGTON – The first of several breast milk collection sites has opened as part of a state plan intended in part to benefit ill and premature infants.

State health commissioner Judy Monroe attended Friday’s opening of Indiana’s first “breast milk depot” at a Women, Infants and Children office in Bloomington. She said similar depots will open next year at three other WIC offices in Indiana.

Women visiting such depots can donate pumped breast milk that will be given to Indiana Mothers’ Milk Bank in Indianapolis, one of 10 such banks in the United States.

The bank provides screened, pasteurized breast milk to infants who are unable to receive milk from their own mothers. Breast milk contains nutrients researchers say can spur a child’s physical and mental growth and which are not found in cow milk-derived formula.

“Making breast milk more readily available through these milk depots will result in healthier babies and can save the state millions of dollars,” Monroe said.

Rebecca Shaffer, a Hagerstown mother of three boys, has been donating breast milk for the past five months. During that time, she’s pumped, frozen and shipped more than 11 gallons of breast milk to the facility, established in August 2005.

“My husband lovingly refers to me as the dairy queen,” she said, holding 7-month-old son Grant in her arms. “I’m nursing Grant, but I’m just blessed with a lot of excess milk.”

Shaffer pumps milk for about half an hour every morning and freezes it in sterile 4-ounce jars provided by the milk bank. Every six weeks, she loads the bottles into her car and drives an hour to the milk bank in Indianapolis.

Monroe said Bloomington’s milk depot, and other depots scheduled to open next year, will help Indiana achieve the goals of a state breast-feeding plan created last year by a task force.

“By 2010, we hope to have 75 percent of the state’s infants breast-fed when they are discharged from the hospital,” she said. “Right now, it’s only 64 percent.”

The goals also call for 50 percent of Indiana’s babies to continue to breast-feed for six months, and 15 percent to breast-feed for one year.

Mary Alexander, executive director of Indiana Mothers’ Milk Bank, said the ideal donor is a mother who has excess milk and a young infant. Donors are not paid for their milk.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Indiana
KEYWORDS: donors; lifesaving; mothersmilk; nostreisandpixplease; preemies
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This is going to save the lives of preemies. Even the most sophisticated "forumulas" are inferior to natural mother's milk. Now the unfortunate mothers who can't nurse their own babies don't have to settle for an inferior formula.

God bless these donors and thank God for "the milk of human kindness."

1 posted on 09/24/2006 3:38:14 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
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To: HairOfTheDog; Rose of Sharn; tuffydoodle; LongElegantLegs; Tax-chick; Maximus of Texas

Thought you might be interested...


2 posted on 09/24/2006 3:44:34 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (Keeping abreast of the times.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

This is the kind of job I want. Milker at the breast milk depot.


3 posted on 09/24/2006 3:46:29 PM PDT by sgtbono2002 (The fourth estate is a fifth column.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

I volunteer to operate the "pumps"!


4 posted on 09/24/2006 3:48:19 PM PDT by US Navy guy
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To: Mrs. Don-o

~chuckling~ I hope the collection place is in the middle of a mall :~)

Seriously... this sounds terrific.


5 posted on 09/24/2006 3:50:42 PM PDT by HairOfTheDog
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To: sgtbono2002

THIS IS MY BREAST PUMP,
THERE ARE MANY LIKE IT BUT THIS ONE IS MINE.
MY BREAST PUMP IS MY BEST FRIEND.
IT IS MY LIFE. I MUST MASTER IT AS I MASTER MY LIFE...

6 posted on 09/24/2006 3:51:29 PM PDT by billorites (freepo ergo sum)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

I'd like to apply for a job in receiving.


7 posted on 09/24/2006 3:55:27 PM PDT by HEY4QDEMS (Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.)
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To: US Navy guy

I heard this guy was first to sign up to operate the pumps.

8 posted on 09/24/2006 3:56:10 PM PDT by Enterprise (Let's not enforce laws that are already on the books, let's just write new laws we won't enforce.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

we were so poor my mom had powdered milk in her boobies


9 posted on 09/24/2006 3:56:11 PM PDT by al baby
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To: Mrs. Don-o

Just wondering...does pasteurization kill antibodies in mother's milk? After all, isn't that what makes mother's milk so superior to formula?


10 posted on 09/24/2006 3:56:19 PM PDT by tundrachick
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To: Mrs. Don-o

This will save lives - more than many understand. Intestinal necrosis might be entirely avoided in premature infants if breast milk is used.

May God bless the effort, and save these little children...


11 posted on 09/24/2006 3:58:05 PM PDT by dandelion
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To: Mrs. Don-o

More convienent than the old fashioned wet-nurse, but not much different.

Seems the old ways aren't so out of date after all.


12 posted on 09/24/2006 3:59:21 PM PDT by Dr.Zoidberg (Mohammedism - Bringing you only the best of the 6th century for fourteen hundred years.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
Unless I'm mistaken (which *is* possible) at least one or two illnesses...viral/bacterial illnesses,I believe...can be transmitted through breast milk.

If I'm correct,what's the deal here?

13 posted on 09/24/2006 4:00:34 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative ("An empty limousine pulled up and Hillary Clinton got out")
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To: tundrachick

(Very, very old)

What makes mother's milk superior to formula?

1. It's always fresh.

2. The cats can't get at it.

3. It comes in such a cute little container.

;^)


14 posted on 09/24/2006 4:02:23 PM PDT by elcid1970 (atio)
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To: Mrs. Don-o; mikrofon; Charles Henrickson; aculeus; dighton; Thinkin' Gal
State’s 1st breast milk ‘depot’ opens

Lactation Station!

15 posted on 09/24/2006 4:02:32 PM PDT by martin_fierro (Thanks for the mammaries)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

Just how many woman can't breastfeed and why?


16 posted on 09/24/2006 4:03:32 PM PDT by bonfire
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To: billorites

I would love to see tim the tool man taylors binford breast pump 5000 look like


17 posted on 09/24/2006 4:04:25 PM PDT by al baby
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To: al baby

LOL!


18 posted on 09/24/2006 4:10:16 PM PDT by EveningStar (EARTH FIRST! We'll strip-mine the other planets later.)
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To: billorites

Where are the pedals?


19 posted on 09/24/2006 4:15:08 PM PDT by sgtbono2002 (The fourth estate is a fifth column.)
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To: tundrachick
I'm assuming that pasteurization would denature the antibodies in a mother's milk. Antibodies in biological laboratories are generally kept at -20 degrees Celcius; if they could withstand the heat of pasteurization, that precaution would not likely be necessary. However, from the article:

Breast milk contains nutrients researchers say can spur a child’s physical and mental growth and which are not found in cow milk-derived formula.

Antibodies are not classified as nutrients. Therefore, there are other things in milk that I guess do withstand pasteurization and provide an advantage over fortified cow's milk.

20 posted on 09/24/2006 4:15:09 PM PDT by psychoknk
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