When Dallas had her son eight years ago, she quickly realized she had more milk than she her son needed to thrive.
“I knew there were babies who could really benefit from my donated breast milk,” says Dallas, a public health nurse at Interior Health. “I have donated more than 20 litres of expressed breast milk to the milk bank. I got the idea from my own mom, who also donated when I was born prematurely at BC Women’s Hospital in 1985.
"The concept and use of donor milk has been around for a very long time, and has shown to be such a huge part in health and growth of our tiniest, most fragile patients."
When a baby is born prematurely or is sick, or when a mother’s milk isn’t available, pasteurized donor breast milk is the next best thing. While milk from a baby’s mother is always the first choice, donor breast milk contains the same antibodies that protect a baby from disease and infection.
