Only The Breast (OTB) is founded on the premise that donors have a key role to play in helping solve the breast milk shortage. OTB supports the value of breast milk and the crucial role it plays for breastfeeding infants and is committed to increase awareness and safety methods to provide healthy, safe breast milk to families in need.

OTB is committed to helping to ensure the safety and interests of donating mothers, as well as addressing the ongoing shortage of high quality donor milk for babies in need.

In light of purported cow’s milk contamination of some breast milk samples purchased via the internet, Only The Breast reiterates our long-term guidance that all OTB sellers should follow best practices using aseptic technique for expressing, handling, and storing human milk which also addresses shipping, freezing, and peer to peer screening. We believe most OTB members are honest, abiding by OTB terms and are simply looking to provide safe milk for babies in need. OTB Terms of Use clearly state that all milk must be pasteurized before human consumption and each OTB seller agrees to use aseptic technique when expressing, handling and storing of the milk supply they make available for purchase on the site.  Additionally it is expressly forbidden to add any form of contaminants such as bovine i.e., cow’s milk.

We are dedicated to educate buyers with guidelines to follow for donor screening, safe packaging and shipping. We do not recommend buyers to purchase milk without strictly following these safety guidelines or to source milk from other online venues that do not implement safety guidelines as we have done for OTB members.

The US Surgeon General issued a call to action to “Identify and address obstacles to greater availability of safe banked donor milk for fragile infants.” OTB is answering this call, by forging milk banking partnerships in order to address the shortage and enhance safety in the breast milk supply. We are not willing to accept that the current breast milk shortage is inevitable.

Although our online breast milk classifieds peer to peer solution has dramatically increased the amount of donor milk availability to babies in need, we are further committed to bringing another more significant solution further addressing the shortage, by recommending donors generously donate their excess milk, to milk banks that strictly follow Good Manufacturing Practices and screen the milk for adulterations such as cow’s milk.  This solution will help solve the breast milk crisis and raise the industry safety standards toward screened commercially processed milk.

As part of OTB’s efforts to support access to safe and responsibly sourced donor milk we are developing milk bank partnerships that empower donating women and their families, who utilize robust donor screening programs, and embrace professional milk processing measures. The primary reason donors come to OTB is so they can help babies while receiving fair compensation for their safe milk and our solution will accomplish both goals. We feel our recommendation will ultimately address a solution and will better enable OTB to continue its core mission as advocates for both donating mothers and babies in need.