If you had no breastmilk, would you use a breastmilk bank?

[Lilly-Pilly]

My first reaction to the question was No. Having said that i personally haven't had a prem baby and am not sure what i would do or how i would feel if i was in that situation if it was a life or death situation. Obviously a mother would do anything they need to to save their baby, and i know breast milk is the best for prem babies, but at the same time, and excuse my ignorance, i wouldn't know if it was just better for them or actually life saving. Like i said, never been in that situation to need to know or to have to think about it.

I breastfed my daughter for 4 months and hated it the whole time. I found i bonded with her more my cuddling and spending time with her than when i was breastfeedign her. I simply never enjoyed the experience at all.

I put her on formula and never had a problem with my descision. We had to change formual a few times due to reflux etc but in the end its the way i did it and why bother regretting anything now, it wont change anything.

If i was to have another baby i dread the thought of breast feeding again, but like Ash would do it for a few months if i could.

To me feeding my chid someone else's milk is similar to something someone said before about people not liking even sharing drinking straws. (Sorry, don't have the time to find the quote, but well said to who ever it was ) For me i'm her mum and therefore i feed her. If i can't or chose not to then she'll have forumla because thats what I know and thats what i'm happy with and thats my choice.

[beastie]

im not sure but i think i tend to no, because the mothermilk adapt to your baby.
there are other 'ingredients' when it becomes older and from a bank it could get milk from a woman which 'beastfeed' since a year. i think there will be a lot of belly aches for my poor little baby

[MantaRay]

I have already posted to say "yes" I would use it. But I wanted to add something that might be of interest to some of you.

My friend gave birth to a very, very premmie baby last year (24 wks). Against all odds he has survived and is doing well. However, for the first few months any little infection or germ would have killed him. Even now, 10 months after birth, he has only just been allowed to meet other kids as prior to this the risk of him catching something was too high as it could have made him seriously ill or even killed him. In this instance, the immunity provided by breast milk is very important. There is no way to know for sure whether this little boy's life was saved because of the breastmilk, but it well might have been. For me, it's not a chance I would be willing to take. For me, it's like the decision to allow my child a blood transfusion. If there is even a chance that it will save his life and the benefits outweigh the risk, (which I believe they do in this instance), I wouldn't hesitate.

This would probably be an easier decision for me than many others though, as I am not uncomfortable with the thought of sharing breastmilk.