Blogging Couple Donate Stash to Mom of Quads
By Jacqueline Tourville
Last week the “dad on a breast milk diet” story made a big splash in parenting circles and headlines around the world. Missed the scoop? As ABC News reported, a dad in California–only identified as Curtis–wanted to see how to see how long he could sustain a diet made up solely of his wife Katie’s stash of frozen breast milk. Part of the quirky month-long plan included documenting his experience on the couple’s blog.
As news of the blog and the breast milk diet began to leak out last week, the reaction from the breastfeeding community was immediate: don’t drink the milk, donate it!
“My wife has hundreds of bottles of frozen breast milk in the freezer that our baby will never have a chance to drink before they get too old. Since breast milk is healthy and we have plenty of it, why not just drink it all myself?” Curtis wrote in his inaugural blog post.
Curtis noted that “fresh breast milk is sweeter and a bit more watery than cow milk.” And after a full day on the diet found that breast milk helped settle his and gave him a comfortably full feeling. “I prefer the taste of breast milk over cow milk,” he discovered.
As news of the blog and the breast milk diet began to leak out last week, the reaction from the breastfeeding community was immediate: don’t drink the milk, donate it!
“There are children in the USA and all over the world who would benefit from this couple donating their breast milk,” one health expert told ABC News. “The value of breast milk is well-documented in improving the health of babies and not all babies have access to sufficient breast milk.”
Happy Ending
On their blog, both Curtis and Katie described how previous attempts to donate the milk had been unsuccessful. Not being able to donate the milk was what led to the diet plan, according to the couple, because they didn’t want the milk to go to waste. But pleas from the thousands of comments that appeared across the web convinced Katie, a doula and lactation consultant, to give donation one more try.
Breast milk sharing advocates can breathe a sigh of relief because this time a match was made. Reaching out to an online breast milk sharing site, Katie was put in touch with another mom in California who needs extra milk for her breastfeeding quadruplets, the Toronto Star newspaper reports. Within hours of being in touch, the two moms made arrangements to transfer the milk.
“It just worked out beautifully, serendipitously, that Katie has so much milk and (the other mother) needs so much,” said the site’s founder.
As for the blog, the couple took it down and are happy the attention that came with it will soon be over.
“This had nothing to do with wanting attention or our 15 minutes of fame,” Katie told the Toronto Star. “I’m very happy the milk is going to a grateful mom. It’s a happy ending and that’s good enough for us.”
