The Mother's Milk Association of Wisconsin opened the state's first breast milk drop-off center last week. The 'milk depot,' located in Mount Horeb but designed to serve patients throughout the Madison area, received its first donation of human milk Oct. 24, according to a Mother's Milk Association statement.
Jill Innes, a Public Health Nurse for the Wisconsin Department of Public Health and a milk depot volunteer, emphasized the depot's public- health benefits.
'We want to have human breast milk easily accessible to Wisconsin babies that may not be able to get their own mother's breast milk,' Innes said.
Babies may be unable to receive their mother's milk due to illness or prematurity and it is these babies who stand to benefit the most from the depot, according to Innes.
She stressed the importance of procuring breast milk for all babies, as it provides great health benefits.
'Breast milk has all those growth factors and immunological boosting factors that formula just can't duplicate,' Innes said.
New mothers who produce extra breast milk or whose baby has passed away donate to the depot. They are screened for infectious diseases.
The milk collected in Wisconsin is frozen and shipped to the Ohio Mother's Milk Bank for processing. The milk is cultured for bacteria and pasteurized there before being sent back to Wisconsin. The turnaround time can be less than a week, Innes said.
'One of the exciting aspects of having a milk depot in Wisconsin is that milk donated here can be returned to our state to be used by Wisconsin babies,' said Kate Brethauer, a urse for the Public Health Department of Wisconsin and a milk depot volunteer.
The milk costs as much as $4 dollars per ounce and is available with a doctor's prescription, but it is generally covered by insurance, Innes said
'The beauty of human milk is that it's specific to humans,' Innes said. 'So the benefits from one human to another are much greater than from a chemical or a plant or a cow.'
