In This Issue
News and Events
From Miami to Fort Worth with Love
Facebook Friends
Community Partners
Moms Connect
Quick Links

 
News and Events
Please subscribe to our new BLOG: Texasbreastfeeding.org Then, leave a comment on your favorite post. Thanks!


 

Read our story in the May 2013 Issue of 360 West 

   

May 4

 



May 11 
Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas' Donor Appreciation Event

Fort Worth Zoo - Call us for details!

 

Greetings!

 

 

Hello and thanks for reading our newsletter! We're busy serving nine new hospitals in Texas and beyond. Read all about it in our first article and then learn more about Northeast Texas Public Health District WIC program, this month's COMMUNITY PARTNER. Then check out the Facebook Friends springtime photos. Enjoy!

 

All of our donor moms have a special place in our heart. When you share your stories with us, we are grateful when you encourage us to share it with others. This month, Lexi Moore explains how she became a milk donor after the tragic loss of her infant daughter, Isabella. When bereaved moms reach out to us, we are amazed and grateful for their generosity in a time of unthinkable grief. Thank you, Lexi, for sharing your experience with us and honoring Isabella with your gift to the Milk Bank.

 

Thanks for all that you do,

Amy

Milk Bank Serving More Hospitals As More Hospitals Begin To Prescribe Donor Human Milk
Since mid-March of this year, the Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas has established new relationships with nine different hospitals located in Texas and six additional states. In the last six weeks, each one of these hospitals began ordering donor human milk from our Milk Bank.



Sometimes new hospitals begin prescribing donor human milk when an infant's family requests it for their child. Such was the case with one mother of an infant who was in a hospital NICU that didn't yet prescribe donor human milk. This mother called us and asked for donor human milk for her baby that was in the NICU. After working with hospital staff to both gauge the interest and finalize the needed paperwork, a doctor at that hospital wrote the hospital's first-ever prescription for donor human milk. We then promptly shipped out processed milk to the baby in need.


The calls came from NICUs at hospitals in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Each one of our new hospital partners praised our nutritional analysis capabilities and ability to dispense the pasteurized donor human milk according each baby's individual needs.


Facebook Friends Share Photos

Each month we share photos from our Facebook Friends. This month we asked you to send us bluebonnet photos! 

     

Want to be our Facebook friend? Click here to visit our Facebook Page and LIKE us today!  Thank you!!

 

Shawn Butler's four 'pure breastmilk babies' in the Bluebonnets - Abigail, Amelia, Nathan, and Morgan
Anna Brissman's son Alexander the day he turned two and a half.
Carrie Ives' daughter Opal Isakson enjoys the Bluebonnets.

 

Friend of the Milk Bank Sam Bramley shares a picture of Lottie in the Bluebonnets

 

Community Partners

Q&A with Bonnie Barker, Breastfeeding Coordinator, Northeast Texas Public Health District WIC Program in Tyler

(Note: The Tyler WIC office keeps a freezer to collect frozen donor milk from breastfeeding moms in the area. A breastfeeding advocate and milk bank supporter, Bonnie says she'll drive to any WIC office to pick up breastmilk from eligible donor moms.)

 

How does the NET Health District WIC program help expecting and new moms learn about breastfeeding?

 

As breastfeeding coordinator, I train peer counselors to support moms in our 21 clinics and in three hospitals. When they come in prenatally, they go to a breastfeeding class before receiving their WIC services. If a mom calls me who is not WIC eligible, I'm happy to help her in my office. We provide all kinds of support, like loaning breast pumps and counseling. For moms who need more help, we have a lactation consultant on contract. She travels to clinics, too.

 

How did you decide to become a milk depot for MMBNT?

 

While attending nutrition and breastfeeding training in Austin, I toured the milk bank there. Then I saw online that North Texas was asking for depots, so I called. It was about three years ago.


I promote the milk depot whenever I do training in other locations. We support those milk donors wherever they live - Tyler, Mount Pleasant, Jacksonville. I'll travel to any of our clinics to pick up frozen milk from our moms. It's just so important.


Why are you so passionate about breastfeeding?

 

I breastfed my children, and one of mine had reflux, he's allergic to a lot of dyes and things in food. If I had not breastfed him, I know he would not be as healthy as he is today. My mother breastfed, my grandmother did, too, that's just what you do. I want people to know if they don't have anybody at home to help them, we'll help them.

We really do encourage breastfeeding in our agency. We got a Mother Friendly Workplace initiative grant

from the state, funded by the Center for Disease Control. Our full-time employees can bring their babies to work for a full 5 months.  

 

We have cradles and pumps for them to use.

 

What makes a great day at work?

 

Not too long ago, I had a mom who came into our Mount Pleasant clinic. She was so engorged and I knew she was hurting, she had knots in her breasts. Her baby was about 8-days-old. We got her baby latched on, her breasts were soft, and tears came to her eyes. She felt so much better. All it took was for her breasts to be drained. We could hear the baby swallowing, and as long as she was happy and good, I was happy.

 

What advice do you have for women who plan to pump their breastmilk?

 

Get a pumping schedule. That seems to really work. Sometimes we get busy at work and forget to pump. I always tell my moms to start a schedule two weeks before they go back to work. Pump when you're rested in the morning, after a feeding. You always have more milk when you are rested.

 

What do you want expecting and new parents to know about breastfeeding?

 

If you're going to try, I want you to come in here and let us help you. Commit to work with me for at least two weeks, to get through engorgement and growth spurts. Then you can decide how well it's working for you.

 

Moms Connect

Lexi Garschagen Moore

Dallas, TX

 

In 2011, at age 38, I married my husband Ken, who was 44 at the time. We really wanted to have a family, but we couldn't get pregnant naturally. I underwent 3 intrauterine inseminations (a.k.a. IUIs) and none of them took. After my first round of IVF, learned I was pregnant. We were so excited!

 

We really felt like it took forever to get pregnant, but then we started to pass milestones and felt okay: hearing a heartbeat, making it to 12 weeks, normal test results. Then, around 18 weeks our sonogram showed that our daughter had fluid in her plural cavity, the layers of tissue between her lungs and chest cavity. We were told that sometimes it can be fatal, but some children survive. At our now-weekly sonograms, we would see her fluid levels fluctuate from better to worse, and at one point they were nearly all gone.

 

The morning of my 30-week appointment I was dressed in old clothes, excited and prepared to birth puppies alongside a friend's dog that was in labor. I went to my doctor's appointment without a bag packed, but then found out that I wouldn't get to birth puppies that day. Instead, my early-morning ultrasound showed that our daughter's condition was critical. She had fluid in her head.

 

 

 

I went into the hospital at 8:45 a.m. to deliver Isabella.  

She arrived at 12:41 p.m., weighing 4 lbs. 3 oz. The initial prognosis was positive and I wanted to begin pumping immediately because I knew breastfeeding is good for you and best for the infant, and it is also cheap and what nature intended. I especially wanted her to get my breastmilk while she was in the NICU.

 

Breastmilk is so precious. I wanted Isabella to have mine.

I began pumping my breastmilk and because Isabella needed so little at each feeding, I froze the rest for her. By day five of her life, Isabella started having trouble with her lungs. On day six, February 2, 2013, she died in our arms. We are grateful for her and glad we got to hold her.

 

We still don't know the cause of her death and we never will. We just know that her underdeveloped lungs couldn't sustain life.

 

Within this short time I'd rented a pump from the hospital. Isabella was now gone. I told my husband I didn't want to stop pumping. I'm able to do this, and not a lot of people can. I just couldn't stop. I kept thinking, "I'm supposed to be feeding a baby right now." And, my grandmother who lost two of her five babies was someone I channeled when I pumped. I felt as if she was with me and helped me make sense of all of this.

 

We bought a freezer so we could store all of the milk. Isabella died on a Saturday and I called the Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas that Monday.

 

I let the Milk Bank know I was on an antidepressant. They advised that I needed to be off of my antidepressant for the prescribed amount of waiting time before donating milk that would be given to NICU babies. In the coming weeks, I began pumping anywhere from 40 to 60 ounces a day. Ultimately, I was able to donate 83 ounces to NICU babies. The Milk Bank also accepted the additional 272 ounces of milk I'd pumped and it used for onsite research at the Milk Bank including analysis trials, research studies, training purposes, and mock pasteurizations.

 

Pumping and donating my breastmilk helped keep me going.

 

Some people asked me why I was 'wasting my time' doing this. This was important to me because if someone doesn't have to lose their baby, then that would be great for that family. I was feeding NICU babies.

 

My husband has been so supportive. We fear we might not have children and that our lives will be so empty. My body still feels as if it is taking care of an infant, but I'm not holding a baby. The silence is deafening. I have a C-section scar and my breasts don't look like they used to, but we want to have another baby. We will try again. Or, we will adopt.

 

Throughout this time the act of breastfeeding helped me not feel as depressed. Pumping for two months and donating my breastmilk to the Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas has helped me heal emotionally, psychologically and physically.