Dairy Fairy

The Dairy Fairy made a delivery recently.  

Have you ever wondered what to do with that extra breastmilk you pumped but never used?  Donate it!  

Milk donation can be an amazing thing.  While it's certainly not for everyone, casual milk sharing is becoming more and more common.  Casual milk sharing leaves the burden of health screening on the donor or recipient, but the process is still quite easy.  

I donated milk for the first time over 8 years ago when Joshua was a baby.  Over the years I have donated thousands and thousands of ounces of milk all across the country.  I have met some amazing families and my kids have some special "milk brothers" and "milk sisters."   Being able to donate milk pretty much makes the recurring mastitis from oversupply worth the pain.  Pretty much.

 Seven is checking out "her" milk.  

This donation was over 1,000 ounces of milk frozen into 6 or 7 ounce bags.  It was more than 8 gallons of milk!  I had to pull it all out of the freezer and pack into coolers, so I snapped a few pictures.  I know I'm not the only mama who has had a weird sort of attachment to her pumped milk.  Pumping the milk really is a labor of love.  When one of my kids knocked over a freshly pumped bottle of milk, I cried.  Yes, I really cried over spilled milk.

 Can you see the color difference between the bags of regular milk and the bags of colostrum?  The colostrum has such a wonderful, golden color.  This milk went to a newborn baby that had just been adopted, so the colostrum was especially useful.

Amelia thought the milk looked pretty tasty. 

If you have some stray bags of milk lurking in your freezer, you just might want to think about donating them to a baby in need.  You can connect with other milk donors and recipients at Human Milk 4 Human Babies or Eats on Feets.