Basically, (and being a formula family, this was completely news to me, I had no idea this sort of thing happened), there are moms out there who will sell their breast milk to a website, and that website will in turn sell the breast milk to moms with babies who feed their babies breast milk bought off the internet.
...
Now, I'm sure these parents buying milk off the internet think they're doing what's best for their babies. I mean, really, who out there is thinking, "Hey, you know what sounds great? Getting some contaminated breast milk that will make my baby sick! I love projectile vomiting!" No. No one loves that.
Maybe it's just the control freak in me, or the fact that I'm a unashamed formula feeder (FF) but I can't even fathom letting a stranger's breast milk cross my baby's lips. Never. I don't know what that person has been eating, or drinking, or doing with their body. I don't know how careful they were packaging and shipping it (I've ordered frozen pizza from Girodano's to be shipped to us and it was packed up like it was a precious organ or something, I can't imagine what sort of precautions shipping breast milk would entail).
We've come to the point where feeding your baby someone else's bodily fluid is considered more acceptable than feeding him formula. Wtf?
There was another story out there (http://www.nbcnews.com/health/75-percent-breast-milk-bought-online-contaminated-analysis-shows-8C11421794?ocid=twitter) in which someone who created one of these websites said the following, "“A blatant attack on women attempting to feed their babies is cruel and you should feel ashamed of yourself for spreading misinformation,” Khadijah Cisse, a midwife who founded MilkShare, a portal for connecting women cited in the new research, said in an email to NBC News. “Anyone can type up any bit of lies they want and make claims. Breast milk is supposed to contain bacteria.”
Here's my question for Ms. Cisse - Does she feel the same way about formula feeding? When there's some new article making the rounds claiming that formula will make your kids stupid and fat and ugly and lazy does she think those authors should be ashamed? It's a two-way street Ms. Cisse. This is how FF's feel pretty much all the damn time when we're attacked for giving our babies what you all deem to be the liquid of the devil on an almost daily basis.
I'm totally not anti-breastfeeding as I've stated before. I know it's amazing for baby, it's just not for me. If you want to breastfeed your kid til he's 12, great, I don't care. That's what's working for you and your kid and that's great. No one is in danger there.
This. This puts your kid in danger. Much more danger than just cracking open the can of formula. And it scares me that people think it's a better option.
I don't know what the solution to all this is, other than to stop demonizing formula as worse than feeding your baby motor oil so that other mom's see it as a legit option. It's not poison, but someone else's breast milk MIGHT BE. You're entering a world of unknowns with stranger milk, when you open a can of formula you know what you're getting.
I'm sad for these moms. I'm sad that they feel this desperate, that they have to turn to the internet to get milk for their babies rather than feed them formula.
Again, maybe it's just something I don't understand at all. Have you done this? Would you do this? Do you think it's a legit better option than formula (dude, if you do, I'm just interested in hearing WHY. Seriously, curiosity, not judgement - you're doing what you think is best for your baby, that's a good thing)?
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