A special kind of breastfeeding service
Cape Cod Hospital labor and delivery nurses Julia Leacy, RN, and Taylor Aboody, RN, each know the value of breast milk to newborns. So, knowing how important it is in the first days and weeks of life, they recently became the first two moms to donate breast milk to the hospital’s new milk depot.
“I was blessed with an abundance of milk for (daughter) Stella and I think this is just a great way to give back to our community,” said Aboody at a Jan. 24, 2024 ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate The Family Birthplace’s new partnership with Mothers’ Milk Bank Northeast.
A donor milk depot is a place where breastfeeding mothers in the community, who have an excess of breast milk, can donate their extra breast milk to babies in need.
All donating mothers go through a comprehensive screening process before they can participate. Once the milk is donated, it is shipped to Mothers’ Milk Bank Northeast where it will be tested and pasteurized before being sent to NICU’s all over New England.
The donated milk goes primarily to infants in hospital neonatal intensive care units (NICU), said Kylia Garver, MPH, director of Hospital Relations and Community Education with Mothers’ Milk Bank Northeast, who was on hand for the CCH ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“Babies born before 32 weeks gestation have a very difficult time digesting infant formula so if their own moms are hoping to breast feed and they need some support with feeding, they can access donor milk,” she explained.
The other possible recipients of the milk are babies whose moms plan to breastfeed but whose milk supply is still developing. Donated milk is a short-term bridge until the mom is able to breastfeed on her own, Garver said.
Empowering to Give Back
Becoming a milk depot seemed like a natural choice for Cape Cod Hospital, said hospital lactation consultant Heather Lakatos, RN, IBCLC, since the Family Birthplace is part of the Massachusetts Breastfeeding Coalition and the Massachusetts Baby Friendly Collaborative.
“We have gotten so many calls every year asking if we are a depot, which is a drop-off location for the Mothers’ Milk Bank Northeast, so we decided to look into it,” she said. “It just seemed like the right thing to do.”
The hospital’s breastfeeding support groups are so well attended, Lakatos and her team knew they would be able to recruit help from moms in the community.
“It’s empowering to our moms to be able to give back to other moms,” she said.
Initial problems with breastfeeding, like Aboody and Leacy experienced, is not uncommon, they said.
“In the beginning, my son Jameson was having some issues with weight gain,” Leacy said. “After a while I was able to build up enough of a stash so that I could help other moms who might be struggling the way we were struggling in the beginning.”
The breastfeeding support group at Cape Cod Hospital meets at 10 a.m. every Tuesday. There is also a breastfeeding support group at Falmouth Hospital at 10 a.m. on Mondays. The support groups offer hands on help with breastfeeding. They also do weight checks for the babies, answer any questions moms might have and discuss breast-feeding topics that come up at different stages of the baby’s development.
Breastfeeding mothers who have questions at other times can also call the Cape Cod Hospital Lactation Warm Line at 508-862-7266, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
