Online market in human breast milk puts infant health at risk, warn experts
Strict regulation is required to protect infant health, say University of London researchers writing in The BMJ
With no official breast milk banks in Hong Kong, the informal sharing of breast milk is not uncommon among local mothers. But while the nutritional benefits of breast milk for babies are widely documented, experts warn that the unregulated market in human breast milk is “dangerous” and “putting infant health at risk”.
In an editorial published yesterday in The BMJ (formerly known as the British Medical Journal), a team led by Sarah Steele, a lecturer at the Global Health, Policy and Innovation Unit at Queen Mary University London, said the informal sharing or selling of human breast milk has a high risk of communicable disease transmission, contamination and tampering.
Unlike donors at licensed milk banks, mothers who share or sell their milk informally are not required to undergo any serological screening, said the experts. This means that diseases such as hepatitis B and C, HIV, human T cell lymphotropic virus and syphilis may not be detected.
It is not known how big the unregulated online trade of breast milk is in Hong Kong, but in China a booming online trade has been previously reported. According to a CNN article in 2013, the market price is around 5,000 RMB for a month's supply of human milk. In contrast, a month's worth of conventional baby formula costs around 2,000 RMB in China.
Unlike Hong Kong, however, China does have official breast milk banks, the first launched in March 2013 at the Guangzhou Women and Children’s Medical Centre. All donors have to provide physical examination results before donating their breast milk, which is disinfected and frozen immediately.