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Greetings!
 Halloween might be right around the corner, but the only thing scaring us this year is the lack of donor human milk we've received. Please consider sharing this E-Newsletter with a mom who has milk to spare! In this issue, we discuss where donor human milk is shipped once it leaves our labs. We also sat down for a Q&A with milk bank founder Susan Sward. And, donor mom Carrie McCullough shares a story about her contribution to the milk bank that also honored her dear friend Brie. Also take a look at our Facebook Friends photo. Amber Smith's oldest three children are too cute to scare anyone! Thanks for all that you do, Amy |
| Don't Fence Us In - Helping babies in Texas and Beyond |  Women who donate donor human milk to the Mother's Milk Bank of North Texas are not only contributing statewide, but also across the nation.
Thanks to the hundreds of mothers who donate their breastmilk, in 2012 we've been able to distribute more than 200,000 ounces of donor human milk via prescription to more than 35 Texas hospitals.
And, our reach extends beyond Texas because we fill prescriptions for breastmilk from hospitals across the entire southern part of the United States. We also work in partnership with our fellow HMBANA nonprofit milk banks to serve NICUs in 39 states in the United States.
This year, we have shipped more than 70,000 ounces of donor human milk to 29 hospitals outside of Texas. We currently serve hospitals in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas, among others.
Human milk is a scarce resource and every week we receive new prescriptions from neonatologists for their patients. Without our donors and their desire to donate and help another family in need, we would not have been able to touch the lives of families here in Texas and beyond.
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 Facebook Friends Share Photos
|  Each month we'll ask our Facebook Friends to share a few photos with us. We recently asked you to show us your Halloween Pics.
Amber Smith shared a favorite photo from a few years back and Molly Sandlin shared a picture of her little NASA astronauts taken earlier this month.
Becky, a physician in Mississippi working on their new milk bank, shared a picture of her Batman who is doing well now, but was born early at 33 weeks. Becky's breastmilk helped him grow up big and strong!
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Community Partners
| Q&A with Susan Sward-Comunelli, MD Neonatologist
Founder and President of the Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas
 What prompted you and others to form a nonprofit milk bank for this community?
Before the opening of Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas, Fort Worth neonatologists prescribed donor human milk from other nonprofit milk banks. Often shipping restrictions or an inadequate supply of donor human milk meant our tiny patients in NICUs didn't get the nutrition they needed to thrive. We saw an opportunity to provide better care for our premature infants by managing a local supply of donor human milk.
When did you begin working to form a milk bank?
On December 10, 2002, I organized a meeting of healthcare providers, community leaders and child health advocates to begin the process of developing a community not-for-profit donor human milk bank. Soon after this first meeting a board of directors was establish and planning was underway.
On May 21, 2004, less than two years later, the Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas received 501c3 status and became the seventh nonprofit milk bank in the United States. From the beginning, we followed the practices set forth by the Human Milk Banking Association of North America, which is important to establishing operations and procedures for making donor milk safe for the most fragile infants.
Office space was leased in the Child Study Center building at 1300 West Lancaster in Fort Worth in May 2004, and a lab space was remodeled and pasteurization began on September 27, 2004.
Our first clients were Harris Methodist Fort Worth and Cook Children's Medical Center, and Mothers' Milk Bank North Texas continues to provide milk for premature infants in those hospitals today.
There seems to be a lot more milk banks and milk depots these days. What makes Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas different?
What's unique about milk banks like ours is that we are created within the community and to serve our immediate community, and we also are able to provide safe donor milk to fragile babies in other parts of the country. This is because our milk bank is part of a unique group of community based nonprofit milk banks located in the United States and Canada. We adhere to the standards set by our national organization, HMBANA, to ensure safety of the dispensed milk.
As more and more hospitals rely on donor milk like ours to feed premature and sick babies, our local community effort begins to have a national impact, and that makes our work very special. |
Moms Connect
| Carrie McCullough
Arlington, TX
Brie was my very best friend. We met in college in 1998 and were close, like sisters.
In December 2010, Brie was 29 weeks pregnant with her third child when she was suddenly killed in a car accident. When I heard the news, I immediately left my home in Arlington and went to Amarillo.
Brie was taken via STAR Flight to Amarillo's Northwest Texas Healthcare hospital where doctors delivered her baby, Curren, via C-section. Weighing only 3 lbs and 1 oz, he was placed in the NICU.
Standing at Curren's side in the hospital, Brie's husband, Eric, mentioned how much he wished Curren could have breastmilk. Brie nursed her first two children and was a big advocate of breastfeeding. She knew the nutritional value of breastmlik and loved breastfeeding her girls, Mali and Eleri.
While outside the NICU, another friend of Brie's was there and said she was about to have her baby and wondered if she could pump and donate her milk. I then remembered that another friend of mine had received milk from a milk bank for her newborn.
This prompted Eric to speak with hospital doctors, and he learned about Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas.
I decided to post Brie's story on Facebook and asked my nursing mom friends to consider donating milk for Curren through the Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas.
A similar notice was placed on CaringBridge.com. I was overwhelmed with the response the milk bank received and knew this was one of the ways God was taking care of my precious friend's family.
More than 150 moms came together to help little Curren. I knew 19 of the moms who donated milk in honor of Brie, but the others were complete strangers to me.
So many donor moms came forward that a collection site was set established in Amarillo at Northwest Texas Healthcare Center. MMBNT originally set the site up with the help of hospital LCs in response to the increase in donors in the area. The site is now a milk depot for the Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas, accepting donor human milk Monday-Friday. Before this happened, the closest milk depot was in Lubbock.
 | Carrie and Cora Hope
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Six weeks after Brie died, I found out I was pregnant with my third child, Cora Hope. I knew that I too needed to honor Brie by donating milk once my baby was born. This was also my way of saying thank you to all the other moms who became donor moms. Together, I know we not only helped Curren, but also helped a number of additional little babies in hospital NICUs.
Curren left the NICU right around his original due date. He survived the accident without any permanent damage. He's now 21 months old, on track and thriving without any developmental delays.
I want to thank all the moms who pump, sacrifice your time and donate your breastmilk for babies like Curren. I hope you feel as good as I did every time I dropped off my milk at the milk depot.
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