Soft Corner Midwifery in Bath recently announced the opening of the third outpatient donor milk dispensary in Maine in partnership with Mothers’ Milk Bank Northeast.
A donor milk dispensary is a community location where a family whose baby has a prescription can obtain donor milk for use at home. Currently, babies at many Maine hospitals can receive donor milk while in the hospital; in the community setting, if a baby needs donor milk, a dispensary is a convenient and important local option. Dispensaries make human milk easier to access while the maternal milk supply is developing. Mothers’ Milk Bank Northeast supplies the human milk by collecting it from parents who have more milk than their babies need.
By opening a donor milk dispensary, Soft Corner Midwifery is on the leading edge of organizations providing access to donor milk in the community, the midwifery said in a prepared release. When a baby requires supplementation in the early days after birth, research shows that families tend to view donor milk as a temporary bridge and formula as a long-term solution. Having donor milk available at community locations like a dispensary can be an essential component in improving human milk feeding rates for