Mums Share Breast Milk via Facebook

By Amanda Pitcher --- Tuesday, November 30, 2010

You've heard of Meals on Wheels, now there's Eats on Feets — a global network of breastfeeding mothers who use Facebook to connect to other mothers to share breast milk.

The group launched their Facebook page in early November and already has members in 50 US states, as well as Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia, MSN's Today Moms website reported.

The Australian branch of the organisation — broken up by state and territory — has signed up more than 1800 members in just a few weeks.

Mothers are using the site to help other mums who can't breastfeed or have a low supply and need to supplement their baby's diet, or for women who have milk to spare to share their surplus.

It's hardly a new concept, wet nurses have been around for centuries, but the practice has been shunned by the Western world in recent years due to concerns over the risk of disease — particularly HIV.

"It was common practice until the late '70s, but stopped when HIV/AIDS started," midwife and executive director of the Australian Mothers Milk Bank Marea Ryan told Mother & Baby last year.

There are milk banks, however, which screen and pasteurise donated milk, Today Moms reported, but prices can be prohibitively expensive and customers are prioritised by need. Understandably, priority is given to premature and sick babies but this can prevent women with low supply from accessing the resource.

Mothers on Eats on Feets are advised to use their own screening methods with potential milk donors — whether it be through a questionnaire or blood test for transmittable diseases. Eats on Feets also recommends home pasteurisation of donated milk to kill viruses, providing a link to a YouTube video provided by the University of California, Berkeley.

There are several milk banks in Australia — most recently in Western Australia and Queensland — but the rapid growth of the local Eats on Feets community shows there is clearly a need for many more.

"Australia has been way behind in this area, yet we're one of the best breastfeeding nations in the world," Ryan said. "We do tend to produce a lot of milk and we throw it away."