by: Steve Alexander
Some Chicagoans may deem pizza or the Italian Beef as the best nature has to offer, but the correct answer is mother’s milk. The Mothers’ Milk Bank of the Western Great Lakes is looking for donors to help keep up with soaring demand
After an emergency C-section, Wisconsin dairy farmer Brittany Olson had to stay behind and recuperate while her newborn, Titus, was transferred to a neonatal intensive care unit an hour away in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. After learning Titus was kept alive with donated mothers milk, Brittany decided if she was ever in the position to be a donor, she would eagerly do so. Eight months after Titus’s birth, Brittany has donated over 1,000 ounces of milk. The Mothers’ Milk Bank of the Western Great Lakes is celebrating its seventh year, and the Elk Grove Village-based non-profit is encouraging lactating mothers in Illinois and Wisconsin with extra milk to donate and help satisfy skyrocketing demand. Milk bank program manager Susan Urbanski tells WGN Radio’s Steve Alexander in the audio clip below how important donor milk is in helping tiny babies in NICUs avoid a potentially fatal intestinal disorder called necrotizing enterocolitis. And little Titus? Brittany tells how he’s doing.
