Express delivery! Mother offers breast milk by courier for women struggling to feed their babies (and a month’s supply of 25 bottles costs £500)
- Businesswoman Julia Sarno started firm sending breast milk to people’s homes
- Dr Sarno came up with BestMilk idea after struggling to feed her son Raffaele
- Women donating milk must be non-smokers, Covid-free, and not on medication
There might be nothing new about getting bottles of milk delivered to your front door – but one enterprising mother has set up a service with a difference.
Thanks to Julia Sarno, new mums can now have breast milk sent to their homes to help feed their babies if they are struggling with their own supply.
The businesswoman, who likens the service to Deliveroo, first came up with the idea after struggling to breastfeed her own son Raffaele, now aged eight.
‘I felt it was my fault that I couldn’t provide this much-needed milk for him, and that it was my responsibility to find a solution,’ she said.
Julia Sarno started BestMilk when she could not provide milk for her then baby son Raffaele, who is now eight
She later thought: ‘We now have all these online food services, so why can’t we order natural food for our babies in the same easy and convenient way?’
The 36-year-old’s company, BestMilk, started deliveries last September.
She says she has been inundated with offers from women with surplus milk who want to donate it.
‘They feel sorry to pour it down the sink,’ she said. ‘So instead of wasting, they are happy to share.’
Donors – who are not paid but receive expenses – have to be non-smokers, Covid-free, and can’t be on medication such as antibiotics or antidepressants.
Their milk is screened for things that can be passed on to babies, including HIV and hepatitis, before being pasteurised and bottled at a laboratory in Sharnbrook, Bedfordshire.
It is despatched in 200ml glass bottles by delivery drivers using refrigerated vehicles. Couriers are told they must hand the order over in person and not leave it on doorsteps.
The company offers a range of services depending on the baby’s needs, with the most popular consisting of 25 bottles at a cost of £500, which could feed a newborn for a month.
Fresh milk must be consumed within five days, while the firm also supplies frozen milk. Milk banks are not new, and the NHS operates its own, but tends to reserve supplies for babies who are premature or ill, not for the estimated 60 per cent of new mothers who struggle with breastfeeding healthy babies.
Dr Sarno believes that ‘breast is best’ and numerous studies have shown how breastfeeding benefits babies
Dr Sarno, an academic rather than a medical doctor, said: ‘There’s little for other babies, but there are millions of parents like me.’
While her idea was simple, creating the business was not. The supply of human breast milk is highly regulated and Dr Sarno had to prove she was operating within strict NHS guidelines.
Midwife Justine McNulty, who is working with BestMilk, said the donor milk was gently pasteurised to 62C, ‘enough to ensure any bad bacteria is destroyed, but not too hot that you lose the nutritional and immunological benefits’.
Addressing the concerns of those who think it unnatural for a baby to have milk from a woman who is not its mother, she said: ‘We are happy enough to drink another species’ milk so why are we not happy for children to have milk from another human being?’
Dr Sarno believes that ‘breast is best’ and numerous studies have shown how breastfeeding benefits babies. They are less likely to suffer from infections, diarrhoea and vomiting during infancy than those given formula, while rates of obesity and cardiovascular disease are lower in adults who were breastfed.
Dr Sarno says her resolve to set up BestMilk was sharpened by a friend who believed her own inability to provide breast milk led to her daughter’s food allergies.
NHS guidance is that babies should be exclusively breastfed until six months old.
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