Human milk donor

Breast milk is the best food for baby. It doesn’t only contain of vitamin and nutrients but also disease-fighting substances that boost your baby’s immune system. This is one of the reasons why paediatricians suggest mother to give breast milk as the main food for baby under 6 months  and keep giving it to their baby until 2 years old. The rise of awareness in breastfeeding affected mother who can’t produce breast milk to give human milk donor for their baby instead of giving formula.

As a moslem, we need to be careful in donating our breast milk as it is related to our nasab (family lineage).  Generally, we can say that the baby you donate your milk will be your child. Here is the fatwa MUI (Indonesian Ulema Council) about human milk donor.

Fatwa MUI

For those who don’t understand Bahasa Indonesia, I give you the summary:

1.    Islam allows moslem to give breast milk to other baby for the goodness of baby’s health while giving breast milk for trading is strictly prohibited (haram).

2.    Make sure you know the baby whom you donate your milk to or vice versa.

3.    Your children and the children you donate your milk  will be siblings (mahram) in terms of five conditions:

a.       The baby  is no more than 2 years old.

b.      The identity of the mother is known.

c.       The baby drinks the donated milk five times or more.

d.      Both direct or indirect breastfeeding (using bottle/cup feeder) make the babies siblings.

e.      The breast milk makes the baby full and not hungry anymore.

Hopefully, the explanation above will help mother to decide either or not they want to donate their milk or want to give human milk donor for their babies.

Salam,

_Asti Ramadhani_