“Paying it Forward” – Swedish Women’s Experiences of Donating Human Milk

BACKGROUND: Human milk is recommended as the only nutritional source during the first 6 months of life. For preterm infants, the benefits of human milk are even more important and can alleviate the negative influences of preterm birth. RESEARCH AIM: To describe how Swedish human milk donors experienced the donation process. METHOD: A prospective mixed methods mail survey was designed. It was sent to human milk donors (N = 72) at two Swedish hospitals. Quantitative data are presented with descriptive statistics and qualitative data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. RESULTS: The infants were between newborn and 17 weeks of age when the participants started their human milk donations, and the duration of the donation period lasted 1–24 weeks. The overall theme identified was the participants’ strong desire to help infants, often expressed as being involved in saving infants’ lives. Many participants experienced difficulties getting the information needed to become human milk donors; for others, expressing milk required both time and energy that they could otherwise spend with their own newborn infants. CONCLUSION: Donating human milk can be experienced as a demanding and strenuous task. Therefore, it is important that women who donate human milk receive the practical help from health care staff that they feel they need. Furthermore, information and knowledge about the possibility of donating human milk, and how important human milk is for preterm and/or sick infants, are important in order to increase the number of women willing to donate human milk.