Why use donor milk?
In the absence of the infant's own mother's milk, donor milk offers many of the benefits of human milk for the infant, including:
- optimal nutrition
- easy digestibility
- immunologic protection against many organisms and diseases
Human milk also contains growth factors that can:
- protect immature tissue
- promote maturation, particularly in the gastrointestinal tract
- promote healing of tissue damaged by infection.
Common reasons for prescribing donor milk include:
- Prematurity
- Allergies
- Feeding/formula intolerance
- Immunologic deficiencies
- Post-operative nutrition
- Infectious diseases
- Inborn errors of metabolism
