It raises really interesting questions I think. For me, the fact that I am so ready to donate but would have been hesitant to receive it, is IMO quite a double standard on my part. What I get from a lot of the responses here is that most of us would rather receive from a friend - a known, trusted, safe source - the EBM. The thought of receiving this from a stranger is much harder to accept.

My understanding is that the milk banks that are in operation are really only for premmie babies at this stage, & only accepting premmie milk as well. So for women who are still in hospital with a very new (term or close to) baby (as I was), milk bank milk is not an option. And if you don't have a handy friend with some age-appropriate milk... it's a difficult time to meet a stranger, decide she's ok then organise the milk, all the while pretending the EBM is your own. I gather that most people if receiving milk tend to pretend it's there own to avoid issues with the hospital staff. What a lot of obstacles there are!

Plus add to the fact that few of us have discussed this prior to birth... hey honey, I'm gonna have a baby soon do you mind if we use someone else's milk ahead of FF? In this sense for my recipient, she's lucky that she's had the time to think about it and decide to follow-up the option. I must also confess that it's rapidly becoming clear to me that this "stranger" to whom I am donating milk really is just a friend I hadn't met before. Someone coined the phrase milk brother the other day and we have already both used it in reference to our children. While I didn't donate milk to make a friend, I truly hope that I can stay in touch with her, as it's such a special & precious thing that is happening. She is also a brave person for choosing to "trust" a stranger, and I admire her (& her DH) for that. It's a funny thing that I now refer to the bottles as "his" (her son's) milk given my DD is not having any milk by bottle.

Maruschke - you asked a really interesting question about DH's. I think to be entirely honest my DH would have definitely preferred that we didn't accept EBM either. But bear in mind that DS had already been comp fed with FF, so it wasn't a new concept (even though with his allergies & eczema you could argue that the FF may not have been to his advantage - but how will we ever know for sure). I suspect (shall have to ask!) that he feels differently now that we've donated our own milk, and again (more double standards haha) he is very proud of the fact that I have been fortunate enough to both feed my own child & help feed another. I think male ego can play a part (and by this I mean healthy functional male ego) in wanting to provide for his children and keep it in the family. But sadly, I think this can backfire and make it harder for the woman when she is in the situation of not being able to fully feed her child for whatever reason. I wonder whether it's also how much they choose to think about the detail... to bottle feed your own child with another woman's EBM and to KNOW it's that woman's EBM in the bottle could be very confronting for some (maybe many?) men.

Mantaray - you said it's done more than it's talked about, and I guess that's why I started this thread - to get it talked about. I'll be quite honest, the general responses have probably been more pro-donate/receive than maybe I expected. Whether that's representative of the wider community I don't know, but it's heartening to see. And I guess at the end of the day, everyone will do what they are comfortable with. I was interested to see an article about a group on FB the other day too which is "eats on feets!" A milk sharing group with the tagline human milk for human babies.

ellasmummy - oh how heartbreaking to see all that EBM go to waste... and the fact you were both on the same meds. Oh dear, bureacracy gone mad!