It’s a lot like a blood bank but with breast milk. All the hard work is done at home.
Now local nursing mothers can donate their milk to Connecticut’s first milk bank depot in Guilford.
“I didn’t even know you could do this,” said Amy Farotti.
Farotti was the first mother to donate when the depot opened a few weeks ago.
When we caught up with her she was dropping off her second bag filled with 130 ounces.
“While I was still home on maternity leave, I pumped and pumped and pumped to stock up and once I went back to work I realized she’s not going to take a bottle, so I have hundreds of breast milk in my freezer,” said Farotti.
Liquid gold is what us moms call it and for good reason. It all gets donated to local hospitals like Saint Francis and Connecticut Children’s to feed sick babies in the NICU.
“When we give babies this breast milk it actually for them is the difference between life and death because babies who cannot digest formula will die,” said Jan Ferraro, Director of Education at Acceleron Medical Products, which houses the milk bank depot.
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The milk is pasteurized for testing and the mother undergoes a thorough screening process.
“She has to have a medical history taken, plus she has to have blood work done and they check for a variety of diseases and everything to make sure that this mom is a good safe donor,” said Ferraro.
All to ensure those tiny hearts keep beating.
For information on how to donate, go to this website.
Information on how to get breast pumps can be found here.