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popsci_2013 00831.txt

#Most Breast Milk Sold Online Is contaminated When organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the World health organization tell moms to breastfeed their infants they may not be considering the role of internet milk. Yet driven by their conviction that breast is best a number of parents have begun buying and selling breast milk online. Experts have worried long buyers may be getting milk that's spoiled or contaminated with pathogens. Now a new study is offering the first scientific evidence that breast milk sold or donated in open online exchanges may indeed be dangerous. The journal Pediatrics has published the first study of the safety of breast milk purchased online comparing milk from milk banks which screen and dispense milk to milk from an exchange website anybody can join. The study scientists from several Ohio research institutes didn't name the website from which they bought their milk but popular ones include Only the Breast and Eats on Feets. Team members purchased 101 breast milk samples from the exchange site and tested the samples for illness-causing microbes. They found 74 percent of the samples were contaminated with bacteria such as E coli. You just shouldn't feed that raw to a baby the study's leader Sarah Keim of the Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus told Reuters. At least the researchers found none of the samples had HIV. Reuters explains the study's implications well. The study didn't directly examine whether contaminated purchased milk made babies sick. However the study researchers say such milk is likely dangerous for infants especially premature babies or babies with other medical problems. Breast milk banks screen their donators for illnesses and pasteurize the milk they sell so they're safer the researchers found. There's only enough bank milk for the neediest infants in hospitals however and bank milk costs as much as $6 an ounce The New york times reports. That's much more than the freely exchanged stuff which ranges from $1 to $2 an ounce. The average one-month-old consumes 25 ounces of breast milk a day. Check out Reuters and the Times for more about the study. But if you're curious about who exactly buys and sells breast milk of all things check out Wired's 2011 feature on the practice. You'll hear from both a buyer and a seller

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