So maybe you are a mother who wants to breastfeed your child but you have physical limitations; it happens often. Or perhaps you ran out of pumped milk and dad's alone with the baby and is at a loss for what to feed the kid. Would you consider asking a friend who is also breastfeeding to lend you a cup? Would that be icky?
Alicia Silverstone, the actress who brought you Clueless and those Aerosmith videos, is all for breast milk swapping. In fact, she's started a milk share program on her blog called "Kind Mama Share." Silverstone is known to be sort of a forward-thinking type of mom -- she pre-chews her son's food for him -- and her thought is share the jug love. Got some extra milk taking up room in your freezer, share it with a milk thirsty baby whose mom can't get the pump going.
The milk swap allows moms with milk to post out that they have it or those in need to do the same. Then, I suppose, these two moms go find each other and babies are fed all across the world!
Milk sharing is not new. There are many milk banks that exist for moms in need, but the donors to these banks have to undergo a rigorous screening process. Additionally, if you want to get milk from a bank you need a doctor's prescription. But with Silverstone's utopian-society plan, a mom could be feeding her baby milk from any old boob.
There was an article recently in Parenting magazine that touched on this same topic. Apparently, Silverstone is not the first to broach the idea of sharing the wealth. The medical field is not very gung-ho about women swapping the fruit of their bossoms. For one, breast milk is like blood, complete with all of the diseases inside a women's body. If you get your booty from a complete stranger, you could be putting your baby at real harm. Secondly, as your baby grows, your milk changes to match your baby's age; you don't want to have a 2-year-old's milk being fed to a newborn. It's just like the stages of dog food for your puppy. It is exactly like that.
The comments from the Internet-posting public have been mixed. Some people think it's the grossest thing in the history of things that are gross, while others find the whole swap to be acceptable. I know that medically they say that breast milk is best, but is it cool if that breast milk is from some other mother's hooter? For some reason, it just doesn't sound kosher to me. What do you think?
