Justine Davies
I seem to have ruined a friendship – with my best friend! - and I don’t know to fix it.
Kerri and I are really close friends since school and we were so excited when we realised that we were going to have our first babies within 6 months of each other! I had my little boy last November and she had her little girl in May.
We’re both breastfeeding (altho my son is on solids as well now). A few weeks ago we spent the morning together and Kerri left her daughter with me for an hour while she went to the supermarket. Almost as soon as she left her daughter woke up and was obviously hungry, so I breastfed her. It just seemed like the natural thing to do and I didn’t even think twice about it. But when I told Kerri later she absolutely freaked out! She told me it was disgusting and that it could have endangered her daughter’s health. She told me I must be insane to do something like that.
I was really offended. I told her to chill out and not be so uptight. Anyway, the result was that she left and won’t return my calls or emails now. I don’t want this to ruin a ten year friendship, I just don’t know what to say to her. If the situation has been reversed, I wouldn’t have blinked an eye at her feeding my son.
JC.
Hi JC. I have to say, I’d be taken aback if someone else breastfed my baby without my permission, no matter how good a friend they were. And realistically, if your friend was gone for only an hour it wouldn’t have caused any real problems for her baby to NOT be fed for that length of time.
However as you said it would be a shame to ruin a ten year friendship, so I have asked Dr Ben Hartmann for some advice. Dr Hartmann is manager of the PREM Bank, Australia’s first human milk bank. This is what he has to say:
“As you may know we have been providing donor human milk to hospitalised preterm and ill infants in our hospital for the past 3 years. During the development of our milk bank managing the process safely has been our major focus. Although in general few viruses are thought to be transmitted via breastmilk there is a small risk that some extremely significant viruses (such as HIV) may be transmitted from mother to infant via breastmilk (we know that breastmilk contains many factors to protect the infant from such occurrences but these may not offer complete protection). For this reason all donors to the PREM Bank are screened in a manner consistent with the requirements for blood donation in Australia. We screen through questionnaire (medical history and lifestyle) and through blood test (HIV 1+2, Hep B+C, HTLV 1+2 and syphilis) - most milk banks internationally meet these or similar standards.
Also all donors are also required to notify the milk bank of all medications taken. And some medications, smoking and any more than occasional alcohol consumption will prevent a mother from donating.
Your concern regarding the difference in age of the two infants and that one is on solids are certainly issues to consider. These factors do influence the composition of breastmilk - but milk composition during a feed, and between different feeds can vary significantly. A breastfeeding baby can (and does) regulate their intake based on appetite and need.
I guess to summarise I would suggest that although breastmilk is an amazing and complex fluid that provides so many benefits - beyond just nutrition - to babies, the consequences of some of these risks are severe. One could only counsel parents considering the sharing of breastmilk in the knowledge that they fully understood and accepted these risks. For this reason our current policy (and that of most other countries and organisations such as WHO) is that 'donor' breastmilk should only be sourced from an appropriately managed human milk bank. Currently in Australia, milk banks (the PREM Bank being the first and largest) only have resources to provide donor milk to those most at need, that being preterm and ill hospitalised babies.”
So JC, sharing breastmilk is not risk-free. Even if you know without a shadow of doubt that you don’t have any communicable diseases that could potentially have been passed on, you can expect your friend to have that same 100% confidence – hence her reaction. My advice would be for you to give this information to your friend, along with an apology. And good luck!
EB Members: What’s your advice? Leave a comment for JC here.
