Deal for breastmilk???

Breastmilk is now mainstream, thanks to the help of the "deal-of-the-day" website Groupon, which offers gift certificates for local companies in your area.  You could get a gift certificate for, say, Mexican food at The Red Iguana and pay $20 for $40 worth of food.  It's a fantastic service and I use it frequently.  However, it usually caters to service-based companies, like restaurants, yoga studios, and massage parlors (parlors?  What are they called?  Centers?)  So, imagine my shock (and jubilation!) when I read a Time magazine article about a Groupon offer in Indiana to buy $10 worth of breastmilk.  It definitely caught my attention, so I read on...

The fine print explained what was going on: philanthropy. People who purchased the deal weren't getting cutthroat bargains on breast milk for themselves; instead, the money raised would be used by the milk bank to offset the cost of providing human milk to premature and sick babies in need. 

The charitable deals are courtesy of G-Team, Groupon's good-doing arm. The fund-raising represents a return to the company's roots: Groupon started as a social-action network in 2008 and later transitioned to offering daily deals. G-Team launched in Chicago in July 2010 and has since expanded to 65 other cities, or one-third of Groupon's markets; Indy came online at the end of August. 

Other G-Team offers have included homeless shelters, school districts and museums — essentially any not-for-profit organization. The milk bank, says G-Team spokesperson Kelsey O'Neill, was a perfect fit. "Everyone kind of has a soft spot for providing babies the nutrition they need," says O'Neill. 

After mom's own milk, donor milk is the next-best option for preemies whose mothers may be sick, taking drugs incompatible with breast-feeding or otherwise unable to provide breast milk for their infants. An increasing number of hospitals have switched to donor milk in their neonatal intensive-care units. 

SOURCE

 But the milk doesn't come cheap. Although it's donated by lactating mothers, milk banks have to pay to screen donors for disease. The banks supply bags in which the mothers freeze pumped breast milk, underwrite the costs associated with shipping and pasteurizing the milk to ensure it's safe for already immune-compromised infants. All that overhead adds up: donor milk typically costs $4.50 per ounce (30 milliliters). 

Some preemies take as little as 5 ml a day, meaning that the 132 Groupons sold could cover the cost of 9 liters (304 oz.) of donor milk, feeding 1,800 babies for a day. "That is huge," says Dane Nutty, IMMB's program manager.

I hope and hope that Groupon will offer the same deal to St. Louis and other cities around the country and that other milk banks hop on this bandwagon.  What a great service and opportunity to be able to donate a little to help a lot.  This is exactly the type of non-profiteering that I would like to build up and support (btw, Christy, this is the kind of breastmilk non-profit I was talking about before in that email...)  So, please, if you guys get a deal like this in your city, let me and others know about it so as many people as possible can "buy" (donate) and help provide life-saving, NECESSARY breast milk to babies all over the country, especially to those whose mommies can't make and/or can't afford to buy their own.

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/10/10/a-groupon-for-breast-milk-of-sorts/print/#ixzz1boOXtAQw