Becoming a breastmilk donor

There are two things I wish I’d done differently. I wish I’d bought a lot more items when I came across an excellent baby cashmere clothes sale in September, and I wish I’d labelled all the expressed milk in our freezer.

There’s little to do about the cashmere issue. But the labelling problem can be fixed. It just means becoming a breastmilk donor is more work than it could have been. If I’d been better at dating bottles with frozen milk, I could have donated milk from the freezer from the past three months. Instead, I have to start from scratch.

But I’m up for the challenge. I would like to help premature babies, so over the next couple of weeks, I plan to express a bit every day to fill the freezer with at least two litres to donate to The Queen Charlotte’s & Chelsea Hospital Milk Bank.

I received the information from the Milk Bank yesterday and it sounds easy. I can have the necessary routine blood test done at the local GP clinic, and the Milk Bank can arrange couriers to collect milk from our home.

And not only is it easy, it’s also an excellent way to make me feel better about investing in the double pump and buying the Medela breastmilk bags, which I never even opened. A real win-win.

Tags: Breast pump, Breastfeeding, Breastmilk, Breastmilk donor, Expressing, Medela, Milk bank