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I admit, I’ve by no means participated in breastmilk sharing myself. Sure, I breastfed each of my infants (and pumped at work) for slightly over a 12 months with every of my boys. However I didn’t take part in any milk donation, and I wasn’t ever a recipient of donor milk.
Did the thought cross my thoughts at varied factors to be both a donor or recipient? YES. With my first son, I appeared to have an under-supply of milk. I needed to pump thrice a day at work and barely eeked out sufficient ounces to fill his bottles for the following day. In these days, a simple system for locating a donor – and extra consciousness across the lengthy historical past of breastmilk sharing – would have dramatically diminished my nervousness stage about feeding my child.
With my second son, I had an enormous over-supply of milk. (Sure, all the things might be *so* totally different with a second or subsequent baby!) That point round, I solely needed to pump twice a day at work. And each time I pumped, milk appeared to return gushing out. I usually wished different infants would have been capable of profit from this ample provide. However I had no simple means of discovering out the right way to go about donating milk.
Enter Kelly Cox. She’s the wonderful and passionate Founding father of “Share the Drop,” an app that makes it simple to attach with folks in your neighborhood who want milk and who wish to share. I invited her to share her story and a few details about this app on the Conscious Return weblog at the moment. If you already know somebody who’s presently breastfeeding, please share this wonderful useful resource with them. Welcome, Kelly!
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I’m Kelly, the founding father of Share the Drop, a web-based app designed to attach girls with extra breast milk to oldsters looking for it for his or her infants. I’ve spent practically 20 years working with expectant and new moms, regardless of by no means having kids of my very own or the need to grow to be a mom. From the outset, I knew my path lay elsewhere.
How did I grow to be an professional in being pregnant and delivery, a passionate advocate for all issues pre-, peri-, and postnatal, and even earn the nickname “child whisperer”? The journey was fairly sudden. I started my profession as a licensed medical social employee. I aided moms and kids in managing the myriad stresses of parenthood, overcoming despair, lifelong trauma, and the more healthy expression of feelings. Nevertheless, I sensed that remedy alone wasn’t my total calling.
By means of my work as a therapist after which as a prenatal yoga instructor and delivery doula, I seen the immense stress surrounding toddler feeding. Society champions breastfeeding because the pure and most suitable option, usually stigmatizing those that wrestle with it. Many moms confided in me about their struggles with breastfeeding. And the accompanying emotions of failure. I noticed firsthand how feeding challenges may result in nervousness and despair. Nevertheless, I additionally witnessed the highly effective assist and camaraderie amongst these moms, forming tight-knit communities.
Then, my life took an sudden flip after I was identified with breast most cancers. This expertise introduced me into a brand new supportive community of survivors who guided me by way of this difficult journey. It was then I noticed one other layer of the breastfeeding problem: serving to survivors who may now not produce milk.
In response, I began sourcing donated milk for these in want. Some donors had an extra provide. Others had skilled the loss of a kid. And a few have been earlier recipients wanting to offer again. My mission grew to become guaranteeing that any guardian wanting human milk for his or her baby may receive it. I became a one-woman milk supply system, connecting donors with recipients and sometimes personally delivering the milk.
Casual milk sharing wasn’t new, however many dad and mom relied on cumbersome Fb teams, which proved time-consuming and difficult, particularly for brand new, exhausted dad and mom. Realizing there needed to be a greater means, I envisioned an app that would simplify this course of. I wished to make connections as seamless as a relationship app.
Thus, Share the Drop was born. Go to sharethedrop.com to be taught extra about our mission and the way we’re making milk sharing simpler and extra accessible for all. We’re devoted not solely to serving to dad and mom supply and donate breast milk in a extra well timed method, but additionally to serving to households discover each other in their very own communities.
Customers create accounts based mostly on their zip codes, in an effort to keep away from pricey and time consuming delivery. It’s my mission not solely to get milk to infants in want, but additionally to construct communities of assist amongst households through the early childbearing years.
You may as well comply with us on Instagram to maintain up with our mission!
Kelly Cox, RPYT, RPYS, LCSW, Beginning Doula, E-RYT 500 is a registered prenatal yoga instructor and delivery doula who has supported 1000’s of households by way of being pregnant, delivery, and parenthood. Being attentive to her purchasers’ emotional well-being, Kelly realized that feeding newborns created a wave of stress, stress, and sometimes led to postpartum despair. She held weekly free lactation assist teams and commonly helped match native households with an extra provide of milk to households in want. As a breast most cancers survivor, she gave specific consideration to fellow survivors sourcing milk for his or her infants. One night, Kelly was scrolling by way of her contacts to supply further milk for a doula consumer, when she acquired a textual content from a relationship app that she had “matched” with a potential date. The concept of a cellular breastmilk sharing app to match human milk donors and recipients was born!
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