Experience with Mother's Milk Bank in San Jose?
Hello, my husband and I are expecting to adopt a child soon and wondering if anyone has experience with receiving milk from the Mother's Milk Bank in San Jose? I'm particularly interested in knowing how easy or difficult it was to get a prescription from a doctor for the milk, the openness of staff at the bank to an adoption scenario (I know they focus on NICU infants for the most part), and how did your child take to breast milk? Thanks!
Jan 27, 2018
Parent Replies
As someone who donated extra breast milk, I found them to be very hard to work with due to the number of requirements they had in place. I believe they give priority to preemie babies for donations as well and they don't have a lot of extra (probably because it's really hard to donate!). You should consider Facebook groups such as "human milk 4 human babies" and "bay area breastmilk cooperative". These are places where women with extra milk will donate to those in need for any reason. There is no official screening done, it's just an informal donation process, but as a donor I was willing to answer any and all questions, so if you are comfortable with it, it may be a good route to accumulate a supply before/after your child comes. I know many families who exclusively provided breast milk to their children through these channels. Good luck!
I don't know much about the Milk Bank specifically but I want to recommend that you check out Human Milk 4 Human Babies as another option. I don't think you need a prescription for that, and it is (I don't have personal experience so this is just my understanding) more of a person 2 person sharing environment for breastmilk. I've heard that you can work with individual donors with respect to age of baby, medications and health of mother, etc...
https://www.facebook.com/HM4HBCA/
Also the Facebook group Bay Area Breastfeeding Support, which is run by lactation specialists and completely supportive of all different situations. I found that group very helpful and supportive and definitely saw questions from adoptive parents on there. That's where I learned about HM4HB above.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/211086202257411/
You have to do the research ahead with the bank. Adoption does qualify but no one at the hospital knew this. They acted like they were educating me that it was for NICU babies. I let them have their say, we got discharged, and I educated my Kaiser pediatrician and got the RX right away. I didn't use it because of Eats on Feets and Human Milk for Human Babies as sources for milk sharing. If you are interested, you might join the Adoptive Facebook group for insight into supplemental systems and inducing lactation to enable nourishing at the breast.