Attitudes of Nursing Mothers to Breast Milk Banking

Abstract

Summary: The attitudes of 500 nursing mothers to breast milk (BM) banking were evaluated by means of a structured questionnaire. Of the 500 mothers, one hundred and ninety four (38.8%) would neither accept another woman's BM for their babies nor donate their own BM to another woman's baby while 184 (36.8% would do both if it became necessary. However, 120 mothers (24%) who would not accept donor BM for their babies would agree to donate theirs to the needy. Willingness to accept donor BM was significantly influenced by the ethnic group (p<0.001), employment (p<0.001), religion (p<0.001) and level of formal education (p<0.01) of the mothers but not by previous experience in nursing a baby. Willingness to donate BM was significantly influenced only by employinent (p<0.01) and previous experience in nursing a baby (p<0.05). Fears of transfer of disease (53.5%) and introducing "foreign" characteristics into the family (18.4%) were the two most important of the reasons given for negative responses. Health education may lead to a near total acceptance of BM banking in our community.