HELENA — Healthcare professionals, mothers, and potential breast milk donors met here at St. Peter's Health to celebrate the opening of its new breast milk donation site.
"I really was getting a stockpile in the freezer, and I was like, 'What am I going to do with this? I'm not going to get rid of it, and I don't need it,'" said Kendra Hull, a mother of an 18-month-old.
She is the first woman to donate to St. Peter's breast milk donation collection site.
She wanted to donate after a close call during her pregnancy.
Hull said, "I went into preterm labor at 27 weeks, and I spent 12 days in the hospital. They hit me with all this information: 'You're not going to be able to do anything really. It's going to be out of your hands.' Then things like donor breast milk came into play."
This is the only donation collection site for breast milk in Montana. It's an expansion of St. Peter's partnership with Northwest Mothers Milk Bank, which absorbed Mothers Milk Bank of Montana.
St. Peter's Health will now be a drop-off center for donated breast milk.
They will send it to the milk bank, which will test and pasteurize it, and then it will be sent back to St. Peter's.
Donors must have their health checked and meet qualifications to participate.
"It's a rigorous interview that they do. They have to have a sign-off from their OB doctor," said Kathy Swanson, a lactation consultant with St. Peter's.
Previously, donors had to send their breast milk via mail, which was inconvenient.
Hull said, "Originally, I was going to have to order a FedEx truck that was refrigerated, give them all the milk, and have them overnight ship it. It was going to be this whole chaotic thing, and I was not looking forward to it."
St. Peter's Health will use the milk for all babies that need it.
If you are interested in becoming a donor, visit the donor breast milk program page on St. Peter's website.
