Nonprofit opens 'Milk Express' at Memorial Hospital for babies who need donor breastmilk

Editor's note: Because of incorrect information provided to The Tribune, the price for the donated milk was incorrect when this story posted and ran in print. It has been corrected. The Tribune regrets the error.

Before Jenna Streit's daughter was born, Streit knew she wanted to breastfeed.

However, in August 2020, she gave birth via an unexpected Caesarean section, and her daughter was taken to the neonatal intensive care unit. Streit was unable to nurse her right away.

As her daughter was taken to the NICU, Streit was asked whether she would like her daughter to be given formula or donor breastmilk during her stay. She chose donor milk.

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"As I had intended to breastfeed, I was really excited that another mom would be supporting me," Streit said. "It was almost like another parent had my back and helped me take care of my baby when I couldn't."

At first, Streit had not heard of the Indianapolis-based nonprofit behind the donor milk in her daughter's bottles. But she soon became familiar with The Milk Bank, an organization that provides pasteurized donor breastmilk to babies in the NICU as well as families who need milk for a variety of reasons, including low milk supply, adoption, surrogacy and medical needs.

Inspired by The Milk Bank's impact on her life, Streit took a job as the organization's advancement director shortly after her daughter's birth.

"It wasn't long after she was born that I made the connection of where the donor milk was from, and, at the time, I lived just down the street from The Milk Bank …," Streit said. "It's a small but mighty team. We just dispensed 480,000 ounces of donor milk last year."

Memorial Hospital opens 'milk express'

Here in South Bend, for about 12 years, The Milk Bank has operated a "milk depot" location at Beacon Health System's Memorial Hospital, said Mellisa Lathion, the hospital's mother/baby nurse educator and lactation coordinator.

Milk donors ― who have been screened via a health questionnaire and a series of blood tests ― can donate milk at the milk depot. Next, the milk is taken to Indianapolis for pasteurization and then distributed to families in need across the state. Milk can be shipped to families in as little as 24 hours, but now, South Bend-area families can get the milk they need even faster.

In November, The Milk Bank opened a "milk express" site at Memorial Hospital in addition to the milk depot. At the express site, families can fill prescriptions for or purchase pasteurized donor milk. Before the Memorial express site opened, the nearest Milk Bank express site to the South Bend area was at DuPont Hospital in Fort Wayne, almost two hours away.

"Having a local access point makes donor milk far more convenient for families who probably need it even faster than our 24-hour shipping time," Streit said.

Lathion said opening the milk express site was a fairly simple process. Her lactation department at Memorial already had one freezer to hold donated milk from the milk depot.

"We just basically had to add another small freezer, (provided by The Milk Bank), that would hold the pasteurized donor milk that would be available to members of the community," she said.

How can families get donor milk?

Families and healthcare providers can request donor milk on The Milk Bank's website, themilkbank.org.

"They provide a little bit of information about their baby and how much donor milk they need," Streit explained. "Their transaction takes place on the website, and then, they take their receipt to Memorial where … they can pick up donor milk that same day."

Each 4-ounce bottle costs $4.85 per ounce ($19.40 per bottle). A prescription is not needed to purchase up to 40 ounces of milk. Families for whom cost may be a barrier can apply to The Milk Bank's Medical Relief Fund, which offers financial assistance on a sliding scale.

Dr. Jessica Basham, a South Bend-based milk donor and obstetrics and gynecology specialist, said Memorial's milk express site is a "great resource" for the community. For much of her career, she said, many of her patients in need of donor milk have looked to online milk sellers, whose products, Basham warns, can be contaminated, improperly stored or unfairly expensive.

All of the milk collected and distributed by The Milk Bank "is from donors that have been screened, so you know it's safe," Basham said. "They also make sure that it's processed and stored appropriately, so I think it just provides a much safer alternative to get breastmilk for people that want their babies to have breastmilk who can't produce it for whatever reason."

Lathion hopes to see donor milk covered by insurance

With the milk express site now established, lactation coordinator Lathion said she wants to raise awareness of the site to local clinicians, pediatricians and family medicine providers. She hopes they will consider The Milk Bank "as an alternative before just suggesting that a mom or a family should just go to formula."

She said research has shown that breastfeeding reduces the risk of infant mortality and cited Indiana's infant morality rate, which, at 6.75 per 1,000 live births in 2020, was the ninth highest in the nation.

"We rank in some of the top numbers, so the state is looking for innovative ways of being able to provide things such as donor milk and help reduce … the infant mortality rates," Lathion said. "At the same time, we are collecting this data so that we can present this to our legislators and say, (donor milk) should be covered through insurance. … It's absurd that it's not with all we know about it being directly correlated with reducing infant mortality."

Email Tribune staff writer Claire Reid at cereid@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: The Milk Bank opens express depot at South Bend's Memorial Hospital