PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A bill recently signed by Gov. Josh Shapiro ensures infants who are medically vulnerable have access to life-saving human milk. Owen’s Law expands access to pasteurized donated human milk to all babies in Pennsylvania whose mothers are unable to produce their own.
“It acknowledges the importance of human milk for all babies — not just the most vulnerable,” said Meghan Devine, manager of the lactation team and the Mother's Milk Bank at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “And it aligns with the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations that the use of human milk and donor human milk shouldn't be limited by an individual's ability to pay.”
She says all babies benefit from mother’s milk — “in particular, babies who are in the NICU, who might be born premature, or might have congenital defects, or cardiac anomalies.”
Key components of the law include:
— Expanding the number of medical conditions that qualify for Medicaid coverage
for pasteurized human donor milk.
— Requiring the departments of health and human services to produce a public information campaign on the availability of pasteurized human donor milk.
— Tasking the Department of Human Services with creating guidance about the use of donated milk.
Devine says there are many reasons a mother is unable to provide her own milk, such as breast-reduction surgery, mastectomy resulting from cancer, or other health issues. And baby formula is no match to human milk.
“Human milk is not just nutrition for babies. Human Milk is also a way of providing a lot of immune properties to babies who don't have mature immune systems,” said Devine.
“And every time a baby is fed human milk, that milk is lining their microbiome in their bowels, that really sets them up for a healthy lifestyle in the future, too.”
CHOP has offered pasteurized donor human milk for hospitalized infants since 2006.
She says the demand is growing. But CHOP’s Mother's Milk Bank is only able to provide milk to patients admitted to the King of Prussia hospital or to the Philadelphia main campus
“I can tell you, multiple times a day, multiple times a week, we get contacts from people out in the community seeking pasteurized donor human milk. And we are referring them to other milk banks that hopefully can provide that.”
She says other milk banks that are farther away can ship milk to people's homes. Many have depot sites as well, so while there aren't many in the area, there's still access to human donor milk.