On-line Sales of Breast Milk: A Poll
January 25, 2007 by Angela White, J.D., breastfeeding counselor
Filed under breast milk, donation of breast milk, poll
While we wait to hear an answer from eBay about whether it permits the sale of human breast milk, let’s do a poll:
[Edited to remove inactive poll. See these poll results here.]
To see all prior poll results, click here.
Regarding sale/distribution of breast milk:
We purchase certified, organic cow’s milk, why not be able to purchase or receive certified, human milk? It’s a matter of certifiying. It would be really frightening to give my baby unknown source breast milk (or any unknown substance). Only in a life or death sitution! I think breast milk could be certified and distributed commercially.
It is certified and distributed commercially through nationwide milk banks (both nonprofit and for profit). I suppose those banks could offer on-line sales, but that’s very different than an individual mother selling directly to another mother through a website without any certification at all!
I think things need to be done so that MM is less expensive. At it’s current high cost (~$2/oz from milk bank), I’d worry that some moms hard pressed for cash would sell their MM possibly reducing the amount their baby would get.
Rachel, I agree. The idea of selling breast milk raises all sorts of difficult moral and ethical questions.
Unfortunately the nonprofit milk banks already run on shoe-string budgets and when you consider that “for profit” milk banks charge over 10 times the price charged by nonprofit banks then $2 seems like a darn good deal.
I believe it is a risk that the mother is taking with her child, but the benefits of breast milk are uncomparable to formula. Breastmilk has many many more positive effects than formula so if a parent is willing to take a chance, which if bought frozen especially is a less of a chance for anything to be passed to the child, since bacteria and viruses live between stringent temperatures, then they should be able to buy from wherever they want. Especially since most insurance wont cover from doantion banks
It’s about freedom and no one has the right to tell anyone else what to do with their own body if it harms no one else. Or we are living in a society with too much control over the individual.
Honestly, I’ve been joking about selling my milk since I heard there was a market while nursing my daughter. I believe it is like anything else, a need and supply. I would never take away from my newborn son and sell his milk, but I would consider selling my stored milk. Donate it, sell it, what is the difference?
my wife and i are finding out that our 3 month old daughter has a VERY rare breast milk insensitivity. she has started losing weight because she cannot eat enough to fulfill her need…because she is so young, she cannot digest soy yet, so we are going to be spending 300/month on alamentum (spelling). why shouldn’t we be able to recoup some of that small fortune by selling the perfectly fine breast milk that we can no longer use?
milk banks are fine, but they do not reimburse us for the milk they inevitably are making money on. i agree there needs to be regulation, but until there is, we are left posting on ebay and the like, it is not our fault that the system is not equipped for situations like this one.