SOUTH PORTLAND — Kim Caron was not expecting a cesarean section birth.

But her daughter, Magnolia, weighed 9 pounds, 11 ounces at birth. “She couldn’t come out the old-fashioned way,” Caron said.

Magnolia needed a blood glucose check within her first two hours of life, and she needed to eat something beforehand. Caron was too groggy and exhausted to express breast milk, latch or pump. Donor human milk filled in.

While she waited for her full milk supply to come in, Caron used a mixture of donor milk and her own to feed Magnolia during the first week of her life.

“We needed it as a bridge,” Caron said.

Less than a month later, Magnolia was curled up in Caron’s arms in an exam room in MaineHealth Pediatrics, cooing in her orange onesie decorated with ghosts.

Caron and Magnolia were there to celebrate the opening of South Portland’s new outpatient donor milk dispensary and depot, making it easier for parents who are experiencing breastfeeding difficulties to access donor milk as a short-term nutritional supplement for their babies.

MaineHealth Pediatrics is the fourth outpatient location providing new parents with pasteurized human donor milk from the Mothers’ Milk Bank Northeast. The other locations are in Augusta, Camden and Bath.

“It’ll create a seamless continuity of care,” said Deborah Youngblood, the chief executive officer of Mothers’ Milk Bank Northeast. Pediatricians and lactation specialists will be able to offer solutions on hand.

Many new mothers struggle in the early days of breastfeeding with things like low milk supply and latching. Donor milk, which is more nutritionally similar to a mother’s milk than formula, can be easier for the baby to eat alongside their mother’s milk as they work toward breastfeeding, according to Youngblood.

“This is just to get you over the hump,” she said. “When you’re a new parent, when you have a new baby, anything that makes life a little bit easier is a good thing.”

Sierra Dube was 33-weeks pregnant when her blood pressure spiked. Delivery was the only way to lower it. “My body wasn’t ready to start feeding the baby, at least not enough,” she said. She and her husband celebrated when she pumped milliliters.

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit offered donor milk for free for the first three days. “It gave us a lot of relief,” Dube said. The donor milk provided her baby Noa with enough calories. “She was so little,” Dube said, born 3 pounds and 11 ounces. Four months later, Noa was 10 and a half pounds.

Most patients use between five and 20 bottles of donor milk, lasting them between 48 hours and a couple of weeks depending on need. Each 100-milliliter bottle costs $17.75. “It’s not meant to be part of your regular grocery bill,” she said.

Mothers’ Milk Bank Northeast gave MaineHealth Pediatrics a $750 stipend to support families who need donor milk but for whom cost might be a barrier.

Youngblood said that human milk is the best source of nutrition for babies. Breastfed babies have lower risks of asthma, obesity, Type 1 diabetes and sudden infant death syndrome, and mothers who breastfeed have reduced risks of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.

For premature and medically feeble babies, donor milk can be the difference between life or death.

The milk within the network is triaged, Youngblood explained, serving hospitals and NICUs first.

“Those babies can really only safely digest human milk,” Youngblood said. “If they digest anything else, they run some pretty severe risks.”

And the milk available at these hospitals and outpatient centers is donated by people across the region who produce more milk than their baby needs. In some cases, mothers have lost their baby and are donating in honor of them.

All donors are screened, and all milk is pasteurized and tested in an independent laboratory before being delivered. The donated milk is pooled to optimize nutritional value, so one bottle of donor milk comes from five donors.

“There’s this group of other moms who you don’t know who are saying ‘We got you, we’re here to help,'” Youngblood said. “‘We’re here to support you and things are going to get better.'” 

Donors can drop off their milk at MaineHealth Pediatrics, at 75B John Roberts Road in South Portland, and the office will take care of packaging and shipping. Donors must be screened before they can participate.

Caron is still working on breastfeeding and is mostly pumping at this point.

She said that if her milk production continues at this current scale, she could potentially become a donor in the future. Right now, she’s focused on feeding Magnolia.