Internet Breast Milk Not Safe Say Doctors

Everything and anything is for sale on the Internet, even breast milk.

In the past, Web sites selling breast milk starting at NT$50 could be seen on Internet auction sites, even offering to send it to your home refrigerated or frozen. Other pictures showed a whole refrigerator full of breast milk, and there was even a netizen from Hsinchu who posted pictures on how to pour the milk into bottles from the sealed plastic bags.

Babies under the age of six months that are breast fed can drink about 70cc to 80cc of milk per meal, and can feed five to six meals per days, averaging 350cc to 480cc per day, sources said, adding that if one was to buy breast milk off the Internet, the total cost per day would be about NT$87.50 to NT$120.

Department of Health (DOH) officials said on Saturday that breast milk was not a type of food and its sale on the Internet was not under its jurisdiction, adding that the department could at most ask the Web sites selling breast milk to take down the items on moral grounds.

Doctor also warn that mothers should not buy breast milk off the Internet because if the donor of the milk has some sort of disease, the virus could be passed on to the baby through the milk.

Breastfeeding Association of Taiwan chairperson Chen Yi-chun (陳怡君) said the health of donors of breast milk bought on the Internet could not be ascertained, adding that the preservation methods used for the milk were also unknown.

Feeding the baby with such milk is very risky, Chen said.

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