Sit a bunch of women in a room and bring up breastfeeding, and it's like Goldilocks come to life. Chances are one woman will be producing too little, one too much, and one just right. But "overproducers" take notice: a Texas mama who jokes that she became a dairy cow after giving birth has just set a world record for the amount of breast milk she donated to a milk bank.
Go ahead and take a wild guess at how much Alicia Richman pumped for the Mother's Milk Bank of North Texas. Now add a few dozen gallons. Yeah, I said gallons.
Richman, who also breastfeed son Drake with the milk she was producing, managed to donate 86 gallons of breast milk to help premature babies. That's about 32 gallons more than the woman who held the record before her.
Pardon me for a few moments while I remove my hands from my computer keyboard and start a wild round of applause. This mama rocks!
And as much as she rocks for doing this, we need to give her credit for coming forward and talking about this story. I've found that breast milk donation tends to be infectious. One woman does it and talks about it, and another woman says, "Hey, I could do that too!" And so it goes.
We featured a mom of three who manages to juggle pumping for preemies with working, going to college, and parenting, and she credited a family member who had once donated breast milk as her inspiration. Now that mom's sister is a new mom to a beautiful baby girl, and she said she's hoping to do the same thing after she gets in a regular breastfeeding routine with her daughter.
I'm not saying anyone is expected to push out 86 gallons (!!!), but if you're like Richman, and you need to have extra bottles on hand every time you pump anyway, what's the point of throwing it away? Your child can only eat so much, but just one ounce can feed a preemie three times over.
What do you think? You in to try to beat Richman's world record?
Image via shingleback/Flickr
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Comments 24
Holy cow! It would take me 30 minutes just to pump 6 oz when I was attempting to nurse. I can't imagine pumping 86 gallons!
Well, from my experience people say it doesn't matter what size your breasts are, but my SIL who's ta-ta's are WAY bigger than mine pumped and filled a freezer and had to start using her mother's freezer! Myself, I was able to breastfeed both my girls for 1yr, but always had trouble pumping, thankfully my kids wouldn't take bottles anyway so it wasn't a problem.
Aaaand Caera strikes again. SHUT UP.
You go mama! Glad you're able to do this!
There are networks you can access without the strict hospital conditions. Human Milk 4 Human Babies are who I used.
Awwww, that is so sweet. It's very selfless act. I think that when woman are nursing we can feel a bit protective of our milk production and reserves. Hey!! it even hurts a bit to share formula,! I consider both to be expensive as they each have their own costs.