>As a community we produce more way more breastmilk than we can use! This doesn’t really seem right to me; or at least it relies on mothers’ volunteer work to pump, sterilize, and store their milk. If you actually need to get rid of extra milk, pumping and dumping is way easier than keeping the milk clean and cold. And if you have an oversupply, pumping a lot is how to continue having an oversupply.
This is sort of like claims that we could produce lots of vegetables if everyone turned their front yard into a miniature farm and spent their spare time doing subsistence agriculture; technically true but not how most people want to spend their time.
Does it currently rely on volunteer effort from mothers with available supply? Yes.
Does it need to? No.
As a society we could organize this better. For instance, by the breastmilk banks paying a fair price for the breastmilk.
Where would the breastmilk banks get their money? From the government? From charging users? I don’t know.
I think the point is that we have a distribution problem, rather than a supply problem.
>As a community we produce more way more breastmilk than we can use!
This doesn’t really seem right to me; or at least it relies on mothers’ volunteer work to pump, sterilize, and store their milk. If you actually need to get rid of extra milk, pumping and dumping is way easier than keeping the milk clean and cold. And if you have an oversupply, pumping a lot is how to continue having an oversupply.
This is sort of like claims that we could produce lots of vegetables if everyone turned their front yard into a miniature farm and spent their spare time doing subsistence agriculture; technically true but not how most people want to spend their time.
Does it currently rely on volunteer effort from mothers with available supply? Yes. Does it need to? No. As a society we could organize this better. For instance, by the breastmilk banks paying a fair price for the breastmilk. Where would the breastmilk banks get their money? From the government? From charging users? I don’t know. I think the point is that we have a distribution problem, rather than a supply problem.