In an age when breastfeeding is all the rage, more lactating women are turning to the Internet to give away their surplus milk. But despite their altruistic intentions, this blossoming community of women casually swapping breast milk online has health officials alarmed over the potential safety risks.
Now a new South Florida venture is offering donors a more noble alternative: a safe way to give their milk to the neediest newborns through a screened, pasteurized process. Say hello to Florida's first nonprofit breast milk "depot," the brainchild of a Cooper City mom who couldn't breastfeed her severely allergic baby and discovered how hard it was to find safe donor milk.
The depot, which officially opened Feb. 19 in The Gathering Place maternity center in Miami, aims to chip away at the shortage of breast milk available for frail babies by making safe donation available to more South Florida women. Three Broward County hospitals are among at least 16 in Florida using the processed human milk to feed their neediest preemies.
