Mothers' Milk Bank Austin

This week’s National Breastfeeding Month theme is:  Breastfeeding saves lives in an emergency. There are many questions regarding child feeding during natural emergencies, such as a hurricane or the current COVID-19 pandemic. Is it safe to breastfeed? What happens when moms are separated from their children? Can changes in a breastfeeding mother’s diet during a natural emergency affect the nutritional content of their breast milk? To help us answer some of these questions, this week, we spoke with Angeliz Rivera - a registered nurse and breastfeeding mother of a 10-month-old baby. She cares for patients in the prenatal clinic at the University District Hospital (UDH) in Puerto Rico’s Medical Center. Angeliz shared her experience working as a nurse when Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017, leading the island into a desperate humanitarian crisis. She also shared useful tips on how to raise awareness about the importance of breast milk in daily life. C heck o...

Baby Athena was born with Congenital Short Gut Syndrome, a rare intestinal disorder. Initially fed hypoallergenic formulas in the hospital, she had a strong adverse reaction and severe bleeding. Only when Athena was switched to donor human milk feedings did the bleeding stop and she started to gain weight. Athena stayed on donor milk for 4 months. Now she is one year old, and her mom decided to share their story as a recipient family to all donor moms and the milk bank community as thanks for all their support. Athena came barreling into this world like a recking ball to our otherwise calm lives. Our warrior was born 37 weeks gestation after a relatively uncomplicated pregnancy. She spent 12 hours in the NICU due to “difficulty to transition” which is fancy medical talk for she needs a little help breathing. Within 8 hours she was in the normal L&D room with me and attempting to nurse. She was sleepier than my first daughter so I started pumping immediately to get my supply...

Breastfeeding, Breast milk, and COVID-19  Hi mamas! My name is Kara Michael and I’m an occupational therapist and an IBCLC (international board certified lactation consultant). I’m the owner of Best Fed Beginnings , a breastfeeding clinic in Beaumont, TX. We’ve also housed a Mother’s Milk Bank at Austin depot drop off in our office since February 2019. I’m the proud mom to my 5 year old daughter, Natalie and my 3 month old son, Theodore (Teddy).  We, as mothers with babies, are facing unprecedented times with the COVID-19 pandemic. We are all trying to do what we think is best for not only ourselves as individuals and families, but for our community as a whole with social distancing and stores closing. It is easy to feel helpless during these times and question how you can both keep your family safe and contribute to the common good and help others in this time of crisis.  Well mamas, I can promise you that breastfeeding, and continuing to breastf...

An Urgent Notice from the Mothers' Milk Bank at Austin Dear Friend of the Mothers’ Milk Bank at Austin, Like so many other organizations, businesses, and individuals, the Mothers’ Milk Bank at Austin continues monitoring the rapidly escalating US experience of SARS-CoV-2, and the respiratory illness it causes, COVID-19. We are comforted by the US Food and Drug Administration’s statements on the safety of food and food packaging and pleased to note that the CDC continues supporting breastfeeding, even in cases of exposure or diagnosis. Milk banks are an essential service, so we continue working through the pandemic, and understand that the highest priority action at this point is to increase donor screening and pasteurization activities to ensure that our fragile babies continue to access life-saving milk. With the knowledge that the peak of this pandemic is still weeks or months away, it is paramount to procure and process milk as rapidly as possible...

Gratitude Mothers’ Milk Bank at Austin recently completed a record-breaking year, with more milk donors providing more milk for more babies in more hospitals and outpatient homes than ever before. Looking back, I’m overwhelmed by the number of individuals, charitable foundations, and businesses who support our work. We thank all of them and hope they inspire others to help babies in need. Many of you know we moved into a larger, state-of-the-art facility in 2017. Since we won’t need all the space in the short run, we took on an excellent tenant last year, Acton Imprimis, a small, private school. We’re grateful to Kevin Jones of Structura, Inc. for donating his time to supervise the tenant fit-out; Structura is the general contractor that did an outstanding job for us in 2017. We thank also Christy Mosely of Native Sun Landscape Design, who donated her time and vision to create a beautiful landscape of grasses and flowers surrounding the milk bank, attracting butterflies a...

This week we celebrated World Breast Pumping Day.  A day where we all the breastfeeding community acknowledge the love, dedication, and sacrifices that mothers made during their breastfeeding journey. The theme of World Breast Pumping Day 2020 is “Every Drop Counts.” Since breastfeeding could be a different experience for every mother and baby, some are able to breastfeed beautifully from the start, while others need more support. At Mother’s Milk Bank Austin , we support all parents, and we believe that all experiences are valid and meaningful. Today we are excited to share Julia’s milk pumping story. Julia is one of our board directors. She is a healthcare technology professional who loves travel and photography and a mother who, after going through a challenging breast pumping journey, became a human milk donor. — When you’re expecting a baby, you do what you can to prepare for your child’s arrival. I did as much as I could to be ready for my baby, ...

Art by Lake Buckley for Dr. Jane Morton of  www.firstdroplets.com Congratulations on your pregnancy! As you get closer to your baby’s due date, you may start to plan for the postpartum period. One of the biggest topics on your mind is likely infant feeding, specifically the benefits of breastfeeding. You can and should begin to prepare to breastfeed even before your baby arrives! Here are a few breastfeeding tips to get you started 1) One of the best ways to prepare to breastfeed is learning as much as you can about breastfeeding There are so many books and websites that provide evidence-based info on breastfeeding. Anecdotal evidence from blogs and other parents have their place as well – they can help new parents feel normal in their breastfeeding journey. Following some breastfeeding-centered accounts on social media is also a great way to learn more about what to expect! Some of our favorites are @normalizebreastfeedingofficial , @pumpspotting , @firstdroplet...

Did you know that the people who greet donors at our depots are volunteers for Mothers' Milk Bank at Austin ? They volunteer during their normal work hours and assist with logging milk that is dropped off, storing the milk properly, packing the milk into boxes or coolers, and shipping it back to us or coordinating pickups with our courier. They do a lot to make the donation process work smoothly for MMBA and also for our wonderful donors. We're thankful for all of our depots and the hard work of our volunteers in supporting our mission of saves babies' lives by providing prescribed donor human milk! Donor Mom Brittany and her baby Remington are happy to share their milk with Mothers' Milk Bank at Austin. Brittany shares how her friend Andrea at our San Antonio Food Bank depot helped make the donation process easy.

Donor Mom Janie recently shared her donation story with the Milk Bank. She learned about our mission from a friend who was donating and felt inspired to donate if it was in her future. Read on for more.

Photo by Aneta Hayne Photography Before we get into a topic that I am very passionate about, let me introduce myself. My name is Naya Weber and I’m mother to two little boys who were both breastfed beyond infancy. It was my own struggles that motivated me to pursue a career in lactation. I’m an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) - my job is to support families experiencing postpartum breastfeeding challenges. In addition to working with families, I am the social media manager for Mothers’ Milk Bank at Austin. I’m grateful to have found my way to MMBA, an organization that does so much good and uses their platform to promote good health from an early age. Normalize breastfeeding - it has been a term all over the internet for the last several years. Moms posting breastfeeding selfies (#brelfies) on social media to a variety of reactions - from praise to the more critical, “why is she posting that ??!” I think the real question we need to ask ourselves ...

The Mothers' Milk Bank at Austin's mission is to save lives by providing prescribed, pasteurized donor human milk. Supporting breastfeeding is an important component of this mission, and in recognition of the need for education, MMBA commits to teaching more than 75 students annually. Some of these students are already physicians, dietitians, lactation consultants and nurses, some are studying to become health care providers, and some, as in this past week's group, are young students yet to choose a career path. We trust that learning about the power of breastfeeding and human milk to improve health and survival, and the role of the milk bank industry in supporting those outcomes especially among the babies born too soon, too small, and too sick, is life changing. Minimally, knowing that human milk saves babies' lives should lead to a greater appreciation and advocacy effort for breastfeeding. MMBA believes that creating an informed community benefits everyone. In Feb...

Baby Zayed was born at 35 weeks gestation weighing only 3.12 pounds, with a cleft lip and palate and a cardiac defect. He spent 13 months in several hospitals, but multiple surgeries later he is sweet, smart, and loves his big brother Yazid. Even after surgery eating was difficult for Zayed, and he has many food allergies, so donor human milk and his mom’s expressed breastmilk continued to be his only source of nutrition for over 18 months. Zayed’s mom calls him her miracle baby! The Mothers’ Milk Bank at Austin provides thousands of children just like Zayed with donor human milk, given compassionately by healthy lactating mothers who express milk beyond their own needs and donate it to help babies born too small, too soon, and too sick. This past year more than 1,100 mamas chose to donate milk, and more than 775,000 ounces of milk were dispensed to babies. Generous community members gave more than $225,000 to support our mission to save lives through the provision of p...

Charitable care means different things to different people. For some it is associated with shame and guilt; for others, hope, gratitude and relief. At Mothers' Milk Bank at Austin, charitable can mean life . MMBA is in the midst of our month-long end-of-year fundraising campaign . This is not to fund a building, conduct research, or pay anyone’s salary. It’s a campaign to support our Charitable Care Program, in place since the Milk Bank’s founding in 1999. It enables us to provide donor milk to all infants with a medical need for milk without regard to their insurance coverage or family financial resources. Let me explain. MMBA expends substantial resources recruiting milk donors and processing their milk to make it safe for vulnerable babies. For inpatient infants our costs are reimbursed by hospitals, but some fragile babies are sent home from the hospital still medically dependent on donor human milk. MMBA continues to provide the milk, even though insurance companies v...

The story of our miracle baby started early in 2014. My husband and I were living in Houston at the time. One day we got the news that my youngest daughter, Veronica, and her husband, Jack, were expecting their fifth child. The due date was late September. We were excited since Jack had just transferred from Columbus, OH, to Austin, and this child was going to be born a Texan —  yay! I wouldn’t have to fly to Ohio as I did for the births of my other four grandchildren. This time we would be making road trips between Houston and Austin. It so happened that this baby decided to make her entrance into this world 15 weeks early via an emergency C-section. We were devastated with the news and started to pray for my daughter and the baby. We did not know what to do, but we knew we had to do something. So, I started to ask the Lord for guidance. When we first met Victoria, she lay in her isolette in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of St. David’s Hospital downtown. It ...

Being a mother is the best and hardest thing I have ever done.  I had a textbook perfect pregnancy until the beginning of my third trimester. I hadn’t even decorated the nursery, bought a crib, or had a baby shower, when I was hospitalized as a precaution for preeclampsia with my first baby at 29 weeks. As I started bedrest, doctors ran tests and wanted to keep me under observation and delay delivery as long as possible to give my baby every moment to grow in my womb. After a few days I became suddenly and violently ill, and my baby and I were in crisis as I became eclamptic and had a seizure. Blood tests showed my liver was shutting down. I had never heard of HELLP syndrome, a very serious pregnancy complication that can cause liver damage and cerebral hemorrhage, and can be fatal for mother and baby, but now I had it! Shocked, my husband watched the frantic race as doctors wheeled me off for an emergency C-section. Minutes later, he walked down the hall to the NICU with...

I really didn't know that donating milk was a thing until my niece was born nine weeks early. By a twist of fate, I was visiting my sister in Austin, when my niece came into the world. I live in Virginia and was pregnant myself, so it was almost like the stars had aligned for me to be there. Anyway, it was a scary situation because I felt pretty helpless; I wasn't really able to do anything for my sister and niece beyond just to visit and worry. At some point during this visit I learned of the importance of breast milk to preemies. I mean, I knew it was beneficial, but I didn't realize it was life saving. I nursed my son until he was 2.5 years old, and I had every intention of doing the same for my daughter. I decided to add donation into the mix. I tried to find a local hospital to donate the milk, but if there is a place, I had a hard time locating information about it. I contacted the Milk Bank at Austin because I knew of them from my experiences just a few months...

Donor Mom Ashley's story: I began pumping with my first (now 8) in order to finish out the school year. I was blessed with an abundance of milk and as the summer approached, I looked for something to do with our deep freeze full of milk. I was grateful to hear about the Mother’s Milk Bank and happily donated our excess right as we learned we were pregnant with baby number 2, who is now almost 7 years old! Because pumping had gone so well for the first, I pumped every morning with baby number 2 as a way to have a little extra on hand and in order to specifically donate to the babies the Milk Bank serves. The second time around brought in over 1000oz and it was so nice to be donating and helping, especially when our finances were lean and I didn’t have a lot of other ways to help people. Johnny (5), MacKenzie (8), Liam (5 months), and Keegan (almost 7) Little did I know that this pumping experience was preparing me in big ways. A short time later, we learned that baby numbe...