I think they are all great ideas too.

My MIL had a lot of milk when she was in hospital (back in those days you stayed for a couple of weeks) and after feeding her baby the nurse would come and help her express to give her milk to other babies. 

I think that's a nice idea and I'd have no issues giving EBM from someone else to my baby if I couldn't BF but I agree with others that I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable having someone else actually nurse my baby.  In fact we have a friend from church (an older lady) that calls cuddling nursing and it weirded me out everytime she asked if she could nurse my baby even though I know she only meant that she wanted to hold her.

I think I could have a new career as a wet nurse.  I'm still lactating (a whole year after I stopped BFing).

ETA: I wouldn't mind nursing someone elses baby, just not so keen on letting someone else nurse mine - double standards aye

cuppatea wrote: MrsMojo wrote: I think I could have a new career as a wet nurse.  I'm still lactating (a whole year after I stopped BFing). Imagine how much you could freak some people out when they ask you what you do for a living

PMSL!  I might just tell people that's what I do so I can watch the reaction & if they don't believe me I'll squirt them

When my mum had me (nearly 27 years ago now), she had me in Oz and those were the days when you stayed in hospital for 7 days after the birth (my mum left after 5 thou as we came to NZ when I was 7 days old). When my mum was feeding me on one side the nurses were expressing the other side to give to the premmie babies in the neonates. If I could I would so do that. Not sure about wet nursing thou.

cuppatea wrote: CuriousG wrote: However, we feed them cows milk - thats a totally different species! Sheesh, its making me think about it now! Yeah exactly, how can human milk which they are suppose to have, be more gross than cows milk? Imagine if they used cows as wet nurses? now that would be something to be weirded out about.

I agree.  Cows are dirty and smelly, whereas most humans aren't.  Plus cows only eat grass whereas lactating women generally eat a wider range of vitamin and mineral containing foods.  Oh and cows sh*t all over the place while they're being milked  (my DH went to a farm last year as a 'team building' and was covered head to toe in manure within 15 mins of walking into the milking shed)

lilfatty wrote: MrsMojo wrote: I think I could have a new career as a wet nurse.  I'm still lactating (a whole year after I stopped BFing).   Golly ... still lactating after a year?!?! Here I was thinking to myself, it cant take too much longer to dry up (as Im still lactating too!)

I've given up on drying up now..... although I expect I'll stop lactating once I reach menopause

lilfatty wrote: Darn it! I thought I could loose an easy 5 kgs if my breasts would go back to normal!

PMSL!!  That's not where I want to lose my weight from.

fattartsrock wrote: ooh and breast milk is sterile (like urine, lol) However, you need to think about it like blood, as it is basically white blood, hence the need for "pasturisiation" so any blood disorders - AIDS etc, would need to be check dfor before dontaing to a milk bank.

That's a great way of looking at it. 

If your child needed a blood transplant would you balk at using whatever blood was available at the hospital, even knowing that it came from a complete stranger?  Probably not.  So why is it any different if, for instance, you had a premmie baby and needed breast milk to help it survive but you couldn't supply it yourself?

As I said earlier I'd be happy to use EBM if I couldn't feed my baby myself and I would be happy to donate EBM - I have it 'on tap' if anyone wants some

Another interesting topic!!

I had a think about this, and then this comment made it a bit clearer:

MrsMojo wrote: If your child needed a blood transplant would you balk at using whatever blood was available at the hospital, even knowing that it came from a complete stranger?  Probably not.  So why is it any different if, for instance, you had a premmie baby and needed breast milk to help it survive but you couldn't supply it yourself?

I cant imagine being a wet nurse as I never got to do that for my own babies, but if there was a choice in this country between purchasing formula or donated breastmilk which was screened I think I would go for the breastmilk.  For all the debating, I dont think there is anyone that would deny breastmilk is the best food for  babies  Would be interesting to hear more about how the australian one is set up!

Im quoting you again mrsmojo, cause this made me laugh!!  (in a good way!)

MrsMojo wrote: I agree.  Cows are dirty and smelly, whereas most humans aren't.

Well, as I said in the BF ads thread, I already have given donated EBM to my DS. I struggled for 12 weeks in an attempt to BF my DS, and had a very low milk supply so couldn't give him much EBM either. He was bottle fed from day 5 onwards. It didn't really bother me whether he was fed via boobie or bottle, as long as he was healthy and happy, but I did want to give him as much EBM as possible.

We were incredibly blessed to meet another mother who lived near us, with a son just one week younger than ours, who wanted to help us out. She had an abundant milk supply and offered to give us EBM for our son, which she did for 10 weeks (an amazing feat, I owe her soooo much babysitting to return the favour ). We had only met once beforehand, which made me think she must be the most wonderful person in the world offering to do that for a total stranger.

We had the same midwife, who set the whole thing up for us - she basically just asked whether each of us would be happy to donate and receive EBM and then introduced us to each other. She talked us through the risks of using unpastuerised EBM, and we understood that AIDS, hepatitis (and apparently thrush) can be passed on via EBM [these things can also be passed on through use of second-hand breast pumps by the way - read the fine-print in the instruction book]. Since she was the midwife for both of us, she knew our medical details and therefore knew the EBM was safe. So after a few days of debate, DH and I decided we would like to use it. 

The woman who donated the EBM is a vegetarian (I'm not) and we used to joke that DS had the most varied diet of any babies we knew: he had my omnivorous diet EBM, plus vegetarian EBM plus formula . We also figured that he got a double dose of immunity.

So how did it feel from my point of view? Well, I must admit it definitely felt weird to know my DS was drinking someone elses EBM the first time I gave it to him. Kinda felt gross when pouring it into the bottle and heating it up, then cleaning the bottle afterwards. Oh, and I soon learnt not to ask how long it took her to pump a certain volume of EBM cause it made me feel completely useless for taking half an hour to produce some pathetic amount like 10 mls.  I was pretty upset about being unable to BF and my low milk supply. But anyway, after feeding DS the donated EBM for the first time I was completely fine with it.  And felt incredibly lucky to be receiving such a precious gift for DS.

Oh, and I know its completely irrational for me to think this, but I would be really uncomfortable with the thought of someone else being his wet-nurse. Part of me was curious to know whether DS would latch onto someone else who didn't have flat nipples, but mostly I didn't want to find out if he would or not. I  bottle feeding DS and does DH - it's really important bonding time for us both.

pepsi wrote: Maybe if I knew the woman, I wouldn't think about the milk coming from some cracked out P addict who went to a milk bank to get some cash??

From the sounds of the previous comments in this thread you wouldn't need to offer cash for EBM, there are plenty of lovely ladies that have BM in abundance and would be happy to donate.