Orange County is joining the few places in California that have human milk collection sites, where nursing mothers can donate extra milk to help other children.
MOMS Orange County, a maternal nonprofit, celebrated the opening of the county’s first human milk collection center on Friday, Aug. 18, in partnership with Mothers’ Milk Bank. Fifteen nursing mothers from around the county were at the MOMS Orange County headquarters in Santa Ana with their donations of frozen breast milk to mark the opening.
The organization expected to collect roughly 5,000 to 6,000 ounces of breast milk in the first day, a spokesperson with the Mothers’ Milk Bank said.
“It’s been about a year and a half in the works,” Dave Lugo, CEO at MOMS Orange County, said of the effort to launch the collection center. “Our interest was, of course, to have a value added service for our families here in Orange County and an opportunity for nursing mothers to bring in their frozen breast milk and and make it available to those who may need it.”
To become a collection site, the MOMS Orange County had to get a human tissue license from the state and have a dedicated freezer with a lock.
Nursing moms who want to donate need to first go through a screening process with the Mothers’ Milk Bank, which is a charter member of the Human Milk Banking Association ofNorth America. A medical questionnaire needs to be approved by their OB-GYN, and if approved, the mother must complete lab tests to check for HIV, Hepatitis A and Hepatitis C.
“Once the donor is approved, once we collect their milk, it goes through our lab where it goes through a pasteurization process to minimize bacteria,” Angelica Rojas, marketing and community outreach manager at Mothers’ Milk Bank, said. “And then, after that, it is shipped, bottled and distributed.”
The screening process is worthwhile and “simple,” said Nichole Barber, a mother of two from Cypress. During the pandemic, Barber was able to…
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