It does make a lot of sense, what you say: give the CMV+ milk to CMV+ babies (it’s pretty standard for babies born to CMV+ moms to be CMV+ as well.) I don’t know — there may be some reason why that doesn’t work.

I know they sequester CMV- blood when you go to the Red Cross to donate and save that back for infants and people with compromised immune systems and even scout out CMV- people, because they’re relatively rare, and pay them (or pay them extra if they’re in a for-pay system like plasma donations) because of the group of people who can’t accept CMV+ blood or blood products. So it’s not just milk that gets factored out like that but at least blood is needed by other people while milk is pretty much only needed by the people who can’t accept CMV+ products.

No worries about insensitivity; I didn’t take your comments that way at all and you can’t be expected to know and step around everyone’s life situations, else none of us could ever say anything again. And that would make for a very boring world.

The hospital sent me home with a pump and told me how to freeze my milk and said they’d have someone call me. The call came and I was told where to go for testing. Already, my freezer was filling up because I was a very good producer.

The test found that I have antibodies to CMV (cytomegalovirus.) It doesn’t harm me and wouldn’t harm any healthy adult who came into contact with me. It’s benign and also very common: an estimated 50% to 80% of Americans have antibodies for CMV. (Among long-time cat owners, the rate is virtually 100% as most cats are carriers and cleaning a litter box is a near guarantee of infection.)

But who *can* be harmed by CMV are those with compromised immune systems, like people with AIDS and newborn infants, especially premature infants. It wouldn’t have been an issue with my own infant because nature provides all kinds of safeguards based on the baby having been inside the mother and shared her blood for so long, but it wasn’t safe to donate my milk to someone else’s baby.

It was a real disappointment not to be able to help out with my milk and most of what was in the freezer just ended up getting thrown away.

Because of the CMV issue (combined with the above-mentioned fact that most women’s milk is already spoken for) it is extremely difficult to find usable donor milk for infants in need. This is why milk banks have a hard time keeping stock and why the milk from them is so expensive.

Hi Audrey,
No need to justify your non-vegan-ness to us. We welcome anyone here as long as they’re not antagonistic.
I’ve never heard of a milk bank, but I agree, that is a much MUCH better idea than using human milk for ice cream, especially since some of the vegan ice creams are really yummy (we like Purely Decadent and are very hopeful that Wheeler’s Black Label makes it here eventually).
I’d support the milk bank, with some caveats that there needs to be some kind of testing in place. I understand you can pass along quite a few things both good and bad.
As for formula being rat poison, both Jane and I and our siblings were raised on formula and we’re all well adjusted, healthy human beings.

I’m not vegan, although I am NOT against it at all! I will not justify my decision to not be a vegan, I’ll just say I would love to.

I agree that cows milk should be left for the cows, but human milk for humans? My problem with that is that there are mothers out there who cannot, for medical reasons or whatever, breastfeed their baby. These moms turn to formula. Formula isn’t “rat poison”, like some believe, but it certainly is not the best for the baby. Since they cannot breastfeed, they should be able to give their baby the next best thing…. someone else’s breast milk. Milk banks are not thriving like they should be, so breast milk from these banks gets expensive fast, and not everyone can afford it. WIC covers formula, not breast milk from a milk bank. If PETA expects moms to donate milk, why should we give it to the general public, who already have decent immune systems? Why shouldn’t we give it to the tiny babies who need it but whose moms cannot produce it, therefore depriving their babies of antibodies that they cannot produce on their own, that they need at such a young age?

I’m all for animal rights, but what about babies’ rights? We should speak for those who cannot speak for themselves, and that should not be limited to animals!

Oh, well. Some stuff others eat is pretty gross to me, so I guess it’s only fair that it goes both ways. It’s a big, wide world, y’know?

Hi Sparrow,
I don’t think the yogurt would be something I’d try. I also would say it’s the grossest thing ever. But it seems like such a private thing.
Just goes to show you how much you’re influenced by your cultural upbringing, eh?

A friend said, “well if it’s so great, why don’t you make yogurt out of it?” (I was in a yogurt making kick at the time) and so I said, “yeah, why not?” and made some. Only one other person besides myself was willing to taste it and he said it was the best yogurt he’d ever tasted in his life. I thought it was pretty darned great, myself. But everyone else thought it was the grossest thing ever. Go figure!