When I was breast pumping for Gabrielle, it was extremely important for me to donate my extra breast milk to sick babies in need of breast milk for their health. A milk bank in Texas was the closest place for me to donate my breast milk; therefore I had to ship my breast milk, which was an ordeal in itself.
I didn’t understand why it was such an important mission for me to donate my breast milk. However, after reading this article, Seal Beach Company Makes Best of Breast Milk, I can see that there is a profound link between mothers that have an experience with a loss of an infant or severely ill baby and helping other babies when the opportunity arises in some way.
Like Alyssa Gordon from the article, I too breast pumped and froze my breast milk for several days waiting for my sweet baby to become well enough to start using my breast milk. After Zachary passed away 8 days later, I could not even bring myself to get close that freezer that held my frozen milk, let alone find some place to put it.
Therefore, when Gabrielle was born 3 years later, in my own mind I was determined to get that breast milk back and give it to a baby that could use it to help grow bigger and stronger. Over the several months of pumping for Gabrielle, I was able to donate hundreds of ounces of my breast milk to the milk bank in Austin. I guess in some way it was a process of helping a baby that I could not help 3 years earlier.
With the expanding use of breast pumps, my hope is that more mothers who have the ability to pump extra breast milk will go that extra mile and donate to help those babies and parents that are in dire need of assistance.
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