Human Milk Banking in North America

Human Milk Banking In North America

A human milk bank is "a service which collects, screens, processes, and dispenses by prescription human milk donated by nursing mothers who are not biologically related to the recipient infant". There are currently eleven milk banks in North America. They are usually housed in hospitals, although sometimes they are free standing. They are members of the Human Milk Bank Association of North America (HMBANA) and voluntarily abide by HMBANA's annually revised "Guidelines for the Establishment and Operation of a Donor Human Milk Bank." The guidelines were developed with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and include protocols for soliciting donors, collecting, processing and distributing the milk. Some of these protocols are described below.

According to a joint statement by the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF): "The best food for a baby who cannot be breastfed is milk expressed from the mother's breast or from another healthy mother. The best food for any baby whose own mother's milk is not available is the breastmilk of another healthy mother" (UNICEF, p. 48). "Where it is not possible for the biological mother to breast feed, the first alternative, if available, should be the use of human milk from other sources. Human milk banks should be made available in appropriate situations" (Wight, 2001).

Read more about Human Milk Banking In North America:  Screening Donors, Collection, Screening and Processing Milk, Distribution, Costs, Donors, Recipients, Risks and Mitigation, Milk Banks, Milk Banking Alternatives

Famous quotes containing the words north america, human, milk, banking, north and/or america:

    Civilization does not engross all the virtues of humanity: she has not even her full share of them. They flourish in greater abundance and attain greater strength among many barbarous people. The hospitality of the wild Arab, the courage of the North American Indian, and the faithful friendships of some of the Polynesian nations, far surpass any thing of a similar kind among the polished communities of Europe.
    Herman Melville (1819–1891)

    Fielding being mentioned, Johnson exclaimed, “he was a blockhead ....” BOSWELL. “Will you not allow, Sir, that he draws very natural pictures of human life?” JOHNSON. “Why, Sir, it is of very low life. Richardson used to say, that had he not known who Fielding was, he should have believed he was an ostler.”
    Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

    In marble halls as white as milk,
    Lined with a skin as soft as silk,
    Within a fountain crystal-clear,
    A golden apple doth appear.
    No doors there are to this stronghold,
    Yet thieves break in and steal the gold.
    Mother Goose (fl. 17th–18th century. In marble walls as white as milk (Riddle: An Egg)

    One of the reforms to be carried out during the incoming administration is a change in our monetary and banking laws, so as to secure greater elasticity in the forms of currency available for trade and to prevent the limitations of law from operating to increase the embarrassment of a financial panic.
    William Howard Taft (1857–1930)

    The North American system only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality. Men and women are subjected from childhood to an inexorable process of adaptation; certain principles, contained in brief formulas are endlessly repeated by the press, the radio, the churches, and the schools, and by those kindly, sinister beings, the North American mothers and wives. A person imprisoned by these schemes is like a plant in a flowerpot too small for it: he cannot grow or mature.
    Octavio Paz (b. 1914)

    For America is a land of Commies and Prohibitionists but Anne does not see it. Anne is locked in. The Trotskyites don’t see her. The Republicans have never tweaked her chin for she is not there.
    Anne Sexton (1928–1974)