During the new year the nonprofit Mother’s Milk Bank Northeast sees a drop in donations, and right now they're looking for donor moms to donate breast milk.
The nonprofit primarily services pre-term and medically fragile babies in the NICU, as well as families in the community.
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There are strict requirements for moms to donate, including a prescreening, health screening and blood test.
Samples of each batch of milk get sent to a lab for testing and once the results show the bottle is safe for distribution, it gets sent to hospitals.
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Breast milk helps protect premature babies in the NICU from infections, especially in their gut, according to Deborah Youngblood, the CEO of Mother’s Milk Bank Northeast.
Youngblood says demand for breast milk is high and thousands of bottles go out to hospitals every week.
“For this to be a source of support that another mom, many moms are sort of they have your back, you don’t know who they are but you know they are out there like rooting for you rooting for your baby,” Youngblood said. “I think that is very very powerful.”
Donor mom Kate LaVerde produced a surplus of milk after she gave birth to twins, so she donated the extra nearly 5,000 ounces.
“X number of NICU babies were fed because of you kind of thing, it was just like probably one of the proudest moments of my life,” said LaVerde.
Youngblood says that the milk bank grew 15% last year and they hope to grow 50% in the next several years.
Last year the milk bank served about 17,000 babies.
If you are a new mom and would like to donate extra breast milk, click here to learn how.
