First, the benefits of breastfeeding:
The benefits of breastfeeding for babies are well known: it can promote the development and maturation of the baby's various organs, reduce the incidence of infant diseases and improve the long-term quality of life in adulthood. A birth cohort study from Brazil showed that the amount and duration of breastfeeding was directly proportional to IQ, emotional intelligence, social status, social achievement, and even income in adulthood.
Secondly, breastfeeding is also good for nursing mothers: it can help mothers recover weight after childbirth, speed up uterine repair, reduce metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease, and reduce the occurrence of breast cancer, ovarian cancer and postpartum depression.
At the same time, the social benefits of breastfeeding cannot be ignored: studies in the United States have shown that increasing breastfeeding rates can reduce healthcare costs by $36 billion per year; reducing the loss of household income caused by parents' absenteeism, reducing environmental pressures such as processing formula cans and bottles, and reducing energy demand caused by the production and transportation of artificial feeding-related products. A study of the costs and benefits of breastfeeding in the United States showed that if exclusive breastfeeding rates reached 90%, $13 billion could be saved annually while preventing 911 infant deaths.
Second, as early as ancient China, many medical books have objectively evaluated breast milk:
"Compendium of Materia Medica": "Human milk, sweet and salty, flat sex, non-toxic." Entering the heart, lungs, stomach meridians", can treat "weak fatigue, weak wind language, stroke silence" and other diseases.
"A Thousand Golden Food Cure": "Tonify the five internal organs, make people fat and white and happy." ”
"Materia Medica": "Milk is yin, its nature is cool and moist, blood deficiency is hot, dry and thirsty and dry."
"Materia Medica Renewed": "Human milk, tonify the heart and nootropics, moisturize the lungs and nourish the yin, remove annoyance and quench thirst, stop fatigue and cough".
"Diet Recipes for Living with The Breath": "Nourish the heart and blood, fill the liquid, dissolve the qi, build muscles, calm the spirit, nootropics, long muscles and bones, sharp organs, strengthen the stomach and spleen, and keep the ears and eyes open."
In short, breast milk enters the lungs, stomach, spleen, and kidney meridians.
It has a variety of effects such as tonifying sperm and blood, Yiyuan Yang, healthy limbs, Rong Wu viscera, bright eyes, and pleasing appearance.
In exceptional cases, it can indeed be used as a medicine or a drug introduction.
Under normal circumstances, it can only be food/food for infants and young children.
Breast milk is not only food/food for infants and young children, but also has more connotations:
Breast milk is the most precious gift from nature to mankind, and it is also the loving cultural inheritance created by mothers with their entire lives.
Before delivery, the fetus receives nutrients from the mother by a long umbilical cord. After leaving the mother," the baby still needs a mental and emotional "umbilical cord" to maintain the most intimate connection with the mother, that is, sucking the mother's "nipple" --- the breastfeeding process.
During the mother's breastfeeding, the baby is close to the mother's skin. When sucking breast milk, the baby uses all his strength to feel the mother's message of love through contact with the nerve endings of the mother's skin. At the same time, the baby's sucking sound, swallowing sound, and the touch of small hands also bring the mother's unique life feeling and psychological enjoyment.
Mother and baby are interacting through breastfeeding, and information and emotional exchanges are. Therefore, when breastfeeding, mothers should find ways to strengthen interaction to achieve better results, such as through language, tone, intonation, eyes, expressions and limbs to convey information, to create a warm and harmonious communication environment, which is crucial for the physical and mental health development of mothers and babies.
Therefore, it has been said that breastfeeding itself is the first table for human beings, the first information website.
Breastfeeding is also a right, both a right and an obligation of the mother and a right of the child. So, if there is breast milk, try to choose breastfeeding. If breastfeeding is really not or cannot be breastfed, artificial feeding is then chosen.
Fourth, breastfeeding must have several characteristics:
1. Specific period/age: After the mother gives birth, there is a time of milk production, the time may be long or short, and the elderly can reach the child's 2 years old or even after the age of 2.
2. Specific population: Infants and young children. If it is a special disease group (including adults), after comprehensive judgment by a doctor, human milk can be selected as one of the treatment measures (becoming a medical nutrition product).
5. Breast milk/human milk is not a commodity and cannot be traded:
According to the 2020 Reply of the Department of Law supervision of the Ministry of Health on the Fact that human breast milk cannot be operated as a commodity, human breast milk is not an ordinary food resource and cannot be produced and operated as a commodity.
"Nursing mother" cannot be understood as "production and operation" in the traditional sense, and it is illegal for social organizations or individuals to industrialize and scale milk management and profit from it. Therefore, the purchase of breast milk through illegal channels is a transaction that violates the mandatory provisions of the law, which should be found to be invalid according to law, and all parties should bear the corresponding legal responsibilities in accordance with the law, that is, the buyer knows that the transaction is illegal and still makes the purchase, and there is also a certain fault, and it needs to be held liable for this. In addition, due to the strict requirements of breast milk for collection, packaging, storage, etc., it is difficult for the buyer to prove that there is a problem with breast milk before the seller delivers it, so because the use of breast milk causes physical problems, the dispute between the buyer and the seller is difficult to be resolved through legal channels, and the buyer's loss is therefore difficult to make up.
Human milk belongs to the "unauthorized operation of monopoly, monopoly or other restricted articles prescribed by laws and administrative regulations" as provided for in the first paragraph of article 225 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China, and the seller who sells human milk and the intermediary participating in the sale may be suspected of illegal business, and if the circumstances are serious, they will be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years or criminal detention in accordance with law, and shall also be fined not less than one time but not more than five times the illegal gains; if the circumstances are particularly serious, they shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than five years. It shall also impose a fine of not less than one time but not more than five times the unlawful gains or confiscation of property.
Sixth, the risks of online breast milk trading also include:
Breast milk purchased through online channels may have loopholes in all aspects of collection, storage, express transportation, etc. This transaction method cannot first confirm whether the breast milk provider has a history of illness, drug use and medication, nor can it determine whether the other party is likely to add milk powder to breast milk. "Some viruses may be passed on to the baby through milk; second, I don't know if my mother has taken medicine, and people generally don't test breast milk for drugs, chemicals or related microorganisms." These factors can lead to great security risks in the human milk trade. In addition, breast milk preservation and transportation have strict requirements, and can not be repeatedly freeze-thawed, otherwise it will affect the composition and quality of breast milk.
7. The breast milk bank provides the legitimate breast milk needs of children with disease:
In March 2013, the Maternal Milk Bank of the Women's and Children's Center was officially launched as the first breast milk bank in the Mainland. Since its establishment in 2013, a total of 1,009 nursing mothers have participated in the public welfare action of breast milk donation in the past 8 years, with a total donation of 8533 times, a total donation of 4244.6 liters of effective breast milk, and a total of 919 children have been treated. From August 1, 2020 to August 1, 2021, the total number of donations was 127, the total number of donations was 1118, the total amount of donated milk was 1499.0 liters of effective breast milk, and the total number of children treated was 344. The total number of donations and the total number of donations in the past year accounted for only about 1/8 of the total, but the total amount of milk donated in the past year accounted for 35.3% of the total in the past 8 years, while the number of treated children accounted for 37.4% of the total in the past 8 years.
Donor screening is particularly important to ensure that the donor is healthy, free of infectious diseases, no bad habits, no medication, no history of blood use.
Donor breast milk stored in breast milk banks is currently used only for hospitalized children in women's and children's centres, especially preterm infants who are not breastfed by their own mothers, and critically ill children who can be treated with donated breast milk.
"Generally speaking, the tube bed doctor will first apply for milk, and the parents of the child must sign an informed consent form, and finally notify the breast milk bank." During this process, the clinical nutritionist also evaluates it simultaneously to formalize whether donated breast milk is needed.
Through nearly 8 years of clinical practice, it has been proved that breast milk is food and food for normal babies, while for sick children, it is a medicine for treatment and rescue, and there are no toxic side effects.
From the donation data of the breast milk bank in the past year, the clinical demand for donated breast milk has increased significantly, and it also shows that the medical value of donated breast milk is increasingly recognized, affirmed and confirmed.
In fact, there are 25 "breast milk banks" in Chinese mainland. The "Breast Milk Bank" is a professional organization that recruits breast milk donors, collects donated breast milk, and is responsible for the processing, disinfection, screening, storage and distribution of breast milk. Due to insufficient publicity, the social acceptance of breast milk banks is still low. In addition, breast milk banks are also facing practical difficulties such as insufficient operating funds, imperfect policies, and low willingness to donate by society. This requires the relevant departments to give more support from policy to social mobilization, to meet the legitimate needs of infants and young children for breast milk to the greatest extent, and those who have excess breast milk can donate to help more diseased children.