Breastfeeding’s wealth of natural health benefits for both baby and mother, including protection against infant ear infections and breast cancer, have been well documented. But between the ready availability of formula, many moms’ difficulty pumping and storing milk and varying levels of information and education available to new parents, agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are concerned about the large numbers of mothers unable or neglecting to nourish their child naturally.
Enter The New York Milk Bank (NYMB), New York State’s first donor-driven breast milk bank, whose mission is to establish a safe and reliable source of pasteurized human milk for mothers who can’t produce or access their own.
Breast milk is especially important for the health of a premature infant. With donor human milk, screened to be as close a match to an infant’s nutritional needs as possible, the infant can develop the proper intestinal bacteria needed to fight many kinds of ailments. Every donor is examined for their health history, infectious diseases, travel history, and more, and then the donation is pasteurized, according to NYMB Founder Julie Bouchet-Horwit.
While NYMB is the first of its kind in New York, the local nonprofit is not alone in blazing a trail, and carefully follows the same HMBANA guidelines as 22 other U.S. banks.
NYMB happily reports they have already received thousands of ounces of donor milk from mothers here in Westchester, and are providing this milk to babies all over New York State.
New York Milk Bank, 185 Old Broadway, Hastings-on-Hudson. 212-956-6455.. nymilkbank.org.
