Wednesday, June 20th 2012

Shell Walker and Maria Armstrong contributed a major article to the 2012 Spring edition of Midwifery Today reflecting their research into the safe handling and sharing of breastmilk.
Click here to view it.

Sunday, November 13th 2011

In response to the many stories about how unsafe 'informal' breastmilk sharing is and how people should use 'formal' milk banks.

Community based milk sharing is an affordable, viable and important option that should be protected and furthered, not stymied.

Eats On Feets facilitates a world-wide network of parents and professionals who have made the informed choice to share or support the sharing of breastmilk. Eats On Feets was the first network on Facebook to do so and has a history of rigorous dedication to the furthering of milk sharing information.

Scare tactics and shocking stories of milk-selling and milk-sharing are frequently used to dissuade the public from participating in milk-sharing activities outside of the milk-banking system. But these tales do not tell the whole story.

Milk banks are called BANKS for more than one reason. Milk selling is a money making business whether on the streets, in the labs or in the milk bank office. It is more than curious that the very institutions who warn against the informal selling of breast milk and/or the free sharing of it, are the very ones who sell the most of it.

Eats On Feets does not allow the selling of breastmilk on its pages. It does support a safe, free and truly altruistic form of milk sharing that can be as safe as the milk bank process, and has an even greater amount of regulation possible in order to meet the specific needs of individual donors and recipients.

This can be accomplished by following The 4 Pillars of Safe Breastmilk Sharing and by referring to the Eats On Feets Resource Guide. Our document has been reviewed by three former milk bank employees, two physicians and countless IBLC Lactation Consultants and is cited as a sound resource for milk sharing by many. Were any deficiencies to be noted, we would take them seriously and update as/if needed.

While community based milk sharing is misleadingly accused of lacking any safety nets what-so-ever, there are also considerations regarding (U.S) milk banks that have not been addressed:

• The use of outdated pasteurization techniques that denature the milk and may put preemies at greater risk and is less than optimal for other babies,
• The use of milk that has not been tested for non-pathogenic contaminates such as alcohol and tobacco but instead rely on a questionnaire,
• The use of an unfair distribution model,
• The use of a model that is insensitive, and therefore unusable, to families of specific religious and cultural groups,
• The use of less than transparent and less than truthful informed consent documents,
• The use of misleading tactics to solicit donations,
• The lack of a public document for emergency distribution or community organization,

and finally,

• The processing of a product that is freely given to them which is then marketed and cost prohibitive to all but the very wealthy or insured.

Yet somehow milk banks are regarded as the supreme keepers of knowledge regarding milk sharing and the feeding of babies. If they know something about milk sharing that would contribute to its safety for babies, if they have information that the milk sharing public does not already know or does not have access to through organizations such as Eats On Feets, then we insist that they are morally obligated to share that information. If not with us, then with the World Health Organization. Immediately!

Until the (U.S) Milk Bank Associations step up and truly show an interest in meeting the needs of their communities, there will remain a need for community based milk sharing and Eats On Feets will continue to do her part to contribute to its safety through research, educational materials and advocacy. I am thankful that milk banks have helped so many babies but there is still much work to do.

Regards,

Shell Walker

The 4 pillars to support the safe sharing of breastmilk

Informed Choice - Mothers are responsible for understanding the options, including the risks and benefits, of all infant and child feeding methods.

Donor Screening - Mothers can communicate with donors by asking questions about their health and lifestyle, and by requesting blood screening test results.

Safe Handling - Mothers and donors should handle milk with clean hands and equipment and use proper storage methods.

Home pasteurization - If in doubt, mothers can pasteurize milk at home; on the stovetop in order to inactivate HIV or using a single bottle pasteurizer that performs the Holder method of pasteurization

Friday, April 12th 2011

How to run an Eats On Feets chapter page

Running an Eats On Feets chapter page is rewarding and a wonderful way to get to know other moms and their babies, as well as midwives, doulas, lactation consultants and other professionals in your area.

The basic two things needed in order to run an Eats On Feets page are reposting offers and requests as admin so that all 'likers' of the page see them in their News Feed, and keeping the Wall clean of spam, ads and anything else not related to Eats On Feets and milk sharing.

A helpful aspect of an Eats On Feets admin is being in the position of networking with local moms and/or birth professionals, that is, being tied into your community, able to make real life connections. Eats On Feets operates locally, and chapters are run with local admins. Knowing or getting to know likeminded people will allow for the network to grow and flourish.

Something to remember is to let the moms (and dads) work things out. The page belongs to them. You may never know who is getting whose milk. Don't feel the need to keep lists or try to organize things. Less is more. Let the moms be responsible to match themselves up.

When questions about milk sharing arise, we have a Resource which contains much of the information available in order for parents to make informed choices about milk sharing. It can be linked to when needed on the pages. Other moms on the page are often also a wealth of information because of their experience. It is a wonderful thing to be able to involve them so that everyone can help each other!

For more information on what Eats On Feets does and does not do, please read our About section

If you are wanting to run a EOF page, please contact us at: eatsonfeetsmail@gmail.com

Thank you for your interest!

Thursday, March 31st 2011

Dear Eats On Feets Friends and Family,

As you may be aware, a network called HM4HB (Human Milk 4 Human Babies) has publicly claimed that the Eats On Feets network has changed its name to HM4HB. This assertion is simply not true. Eats On Feets never changed its name and remains the same entity it has always been, doing what we have always done - supporting breastmilk sharing on a community level. HM4HB is a separate entity. EOF and I have no connection with HM4HB and HM4HB has no connection with EOF.

What precipitated the departure from EOF of those who are now operating as HM4HB was a fundamental disagreement over safety and informed choice issues. After Maria Armstrong and I began research into safe options for breastmilk sharing, it became clear to us that prenatal blood testing is insufficient as a tool for proper donor screening. We learned from the published research that for EOF to claim that stove-top flash heating inactivates viruses would be a misrepresentation of what flash heating can or cannot accomplish. The scientific research does not support claims that flash heating kills any viral pathogen other than HIV. We also learned from this research that any pasteurization of breastmilk carries certain risks, especially for premature or sick babies.

In order to provide families with useful resources for their own investigations, we changed our website to include this evidence-based research about proper blood screening, pasteurization, and the use of raw milk.

Trademarking the Eats On Feets name was necessary in order to protect use of the name in connection with all that it stands for -- that is, specifically, providing evidence-based information and research to the families that Eats On Feets serves, and providing a venue for commerce-free milk sharing on a local community level without centralized control. Having a trademark (actually, a "service mark," since what EOF does is a service, not a product) protects the name Eats On Feets from being used outside of these parameters, and assures that those who want to maintain Eats On Feets pages as administrators can retain their autonomy to run their respective pages as they see fit, within these parameters, without having to be "approved" by some central authority.

A group of former Eats On Feets page administrators did not agree with our research and the trademarking, and founded HM4HB. In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with starting a new breastmilk sharing network. However, the page admins who left EOF publicly and falsely claimed that the Eats On Feets network had been renamed HM4HB, and they then proceeded to rename Eats On Feets pages or used the Eats On Feets pages to funnel EOF content to their new HM4HB pages, while locking the EOF pages for further posting -- all based upon a false assertion that the network had changed its name. When we realized what was happening, we believed there was no choice but to report the participating pages to Facebook because the name Eats On Feets was being misused and Eats On Feets content was being misappropriated and used by HM4HB, content which they had not created. Our chief concern, however, has been and continues to be that the name Eats On Feets not be associated with any network that does not provide the evidence-based researched information that we consider essential for true informed choice on the part of families who participate in breastmilk sharing. We do not want the name Eats On Feets associated with any safety claims that are not supported by evidence-based research.

Please accept our apologies for any confusion this may have caused and for our not having communicated with you sooner to explain what was happening. We are pleased that today, after this trying time, our website www.eatsonfeets.org now contains evidence-based information for milk sharing. We encourage you to visit that site, as well as the new Eats On Feets Facebook page at www.facebook.com/EatsOnFeetsHome where we facilitate the sharing of breastmilk and direct families to their local Eats On Feets page and/or to our new forum.

Shell Walker,
Eats On Feets Founder & Licensed Midwife

Questions? info@eatsonfeets.org

Tuesday, March 15th 2011

This is a response to the original article published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal
Milk sharing: boon or biohazard?

Dear Lauren,

Please allow me to post some corrections.

Routine prenatal testing is inconclusive when it comes to safe milk sharing. It does not address every disease milk is typically screened for, and testing is primarily done at the beginning of pregnancy. Many opt out of HIV screening. Both HMBANA and UKAMB recommend testing every 3-6 months for HIV, HTLV, HBV, HCV, Syphilis and Rubella. These guidelines are followed by most milk banks.

The only country I know of that relies on donor screening alone is Norway. Milk banks generally also use the Holder method of pasteurization for safety.

Regarding pasteurizing breastmilk, flash-pasteurizing is a commercial method that requires special equipment and cannot be duplicated in a home setting. What can be done at home is called "flash-heating." The only virus that this method has demonstrated to inactivate is HIV. While flash-pasteurizing has shown to inactivate HIV, HTLV, HBV and HCV, and CMV as well as markers for many other viruses, the effectiveness of flash-heating on viruses other than HIV is theoretical.

It is important to note is that any pasteurizing of breastmilk raises the risk of spore release from spore-forming bacteria.

When mothers look for information for safe breastmilk sharing, it is important that all available information is presented. Deviation from standard is and should be a personal choice and not the only information given.

More information at www.eatsonfeetsresources.org

Currently, Eats on Feets is in the process of restructuring. Emma Kwasnica is no longer affiliated with Eats on Feets. We will soon present a press release.

Sincerely,
Maria Armstrong
EOF Admin