Hema-Quebec, Quebec's provincial blood bank, is considering creating a breast milk bank to provide breast milk to babies whose mothers are unable to produce their own milk.
Canada has only one breast milk bank, in Vancouver. But it is not large enough to meet the demand for milk in other parts of the country.
Some parents desperate for breast milk have turned to the Internet to look for milk donors or sellers. Health Canada has called the practice unsafe, warning that the medical history of donors found on the Web may be unknown.
Hema-Quebec says it's been researching the idea of starting a breast milk bank for the past several months.
"The response has been near unanimously positive," Marc Germain, vice-president of the non-profit, told the Canadian Press about his group's consultations with stakeholders.
The agency is planning soon to draft a report on its investigations. It will present the report to the provincial government, which will decide whether to give the project the go-ahead.
The milk from the bank would likely be available only to premature babies, where the need is greatest and the benefits of breast milk are most clearly documented. But the service could one day be expanded to others who'd like to access the milk.
The Canadian Paediatric Society recently called for the creation of more breast milk banks to help treat sick newborns, saying the one in Vancouver isn't large enough.
The group says only about half the mothers of sick newborns are able to produce an adequate milk supply, either because they are sick themselves or because they are separated from their baby."
Like Health Canada, however, it warned against sharing breast milk that hasn't been properly screened for infectious agents and pasteurized.
According to the CPS, exclusive breastfeeding is the best choice for babies for the first six months of life. Human breast milk provides benefits that cannot be replicated by infant formula, including improved health and development of the child as well as the health of the mother.
Statistics Canada reports that in 2009, nearly 88 per cent of women who had given birth in the past five years had breastfed their most recent baby, even if only for a short time. That's up from about 25 per cent in the mid-1960s.
