Documentary will raise money to open Portland facility

Karen Horner pumps 60 to 70 ounces of breast milk per day — a staggering amount, as any mother who’s ever breastfed knows.

Some of it, she uses to feed her baby boy, Kyle, who was born premature at 34 weeks. He weighed in at 4 pounds, 11 ounces, and stayed in the neo-natal intensive care unit with a condition called laryngeal cleft, which does not let him eat by mouth.

Now at six months, Kyle is home with his family, fed on his mother’s milk by a feeding tube into his stomach.

“It became obvious I was producing more than he can ingest,” says Horner, 29, who lives in Hillsboro. “I felt too guilty throwing my milk. I have to pump. It should be put to good use somewhere.”

Like thousands of other women across the country, Horne donates milk to the Human Milk Bank Association of North America, a not-for-profit established in 1985 when the risk of spreading HIV/AIDS from mother to child first arose.

There are 11 U.S. milk banks that follow those guidelines to screen the donors, pasteurize the milk, test for any risk of communicable disease, and then ship it to a hospital or family birthing center to where it’s needed most.

Portland’s hospitals commonly use donor milk to help nurse premature or medically fragile babies back to weight and health.

Of the 11 U.S. milk banks, however, the closest to Portland are San Jose and Denver.

The Northwest Mothers Milk Bank, which formed as a not-for-profit in 2008, hopes to change that by opening the first milk bank in Portland and the Pacific Northwest.

“We have such a high rate (of donations), why don’t we just keep that milk here and process it here?” says Dixie Whetsell, a lactation consultant of 20 years at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center who’s been part of the founding effort. “Whenever you open a donor bank, the donor pool increases exponentially. It becomes a community effort and people want to contribute.”

The Northwest milk bank is in “developing” status, with hopes to raise the last third of its required funding. It’s still able to facilitate donations by Portland-area moms at one of 11 drop-off sites, which take in a total of 5,000 to 10,000 ounces of milk each month.

Horner is Portland’s top donor, giving just more than 4,000 ounces in the course of two dropoffs.

“We had seven camping coolers full of milk last time,” she says. “It just goes in the freezer and I donate it once I collect a lot. ... I want to give as much of it away to any baby that wants the milk, so they have every opportunity to grow as healthy as they can.”

New office space

Once funded, the program will purchase the needed equipment and hire staff to begin processing and pasteurizing milk to meet regional demands.

An 11-person board of directors and another nine-person medical advisory council work from donated office space at the Sunset Medical Plaza on Southwest Barnes Road.

Once their funding goal is reached, they hope to open at that location within 18 months.

The Portland milk bank will hold a fundraising event on Aug. 8: a screening of the film “Donor Milk,” co-directed by filmmakers Jarred King and Kevin West.

Released in March, the timely film chronicles the altruistic milk donations made by mothers from London to Los Angeles, as well as the service and science of milk banking.

According to the film, the U.S. sees 500,000 premature births a year — one in eight babies — a number that’s been climbing in the past five years.

Whetsell says she’s seen premature babies develop “necrotizing entrocolitis” — a gastrointestinal disease that causes some of the gut tissue to die.

“It’s devastating,” she says. “Mama’s milk reduces the risk of some of this, much more than the pre-term formulas. Mothers’ milk and donors’ milk are truly lifesaving. It makes a difference in a baby’s life every day.”

The milk banks in North America dispensed more than 2 million ounces, an increase of 17 percent in two years.

According to the film, about 12,000 million gallons of human milk are needed each year.

Breastfeeding capital

While federal rankings have long recognized Portland as a U.S. breastfeeding capital, it’s often a topic that doesn’t come up. It crops up in public conversation every now and then when celebrities are pictured on the front page of a tabloid with child to breast or in the case of the recent Time magazine cover of the toddler standing attached to his mom.

In reality, breastfeeding is growing more common every day — nationally and especially in Oregon, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2011 breastfeeding report card.

Oregon ranks at the top of all states as far as percentage of mothers who’ve ever breastfed their baby: a whopping 91 percent.

As many as 62 percent of Oregon mothers breastfed at six months; 34 percent were still going at 12 months. Half of Oregon mothers exclusively breastfed at three months; 21 percent at six months.