Christmas special: The gift of donor milk, with Dr. Natalie Shenker

Since it’s the season of giving I wanted to talk about one of the greatest gifts of all – that of donated breast milk. My special guest on this episode of the boobingit podcast is Dr Natalie Shenker, Cofounder of The Human Milk Foundation.

Natalie is an Oxford-trained doctor and researcher, and she co-founded the Hearts Milk Bank in 2016. In 2019 she was awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship at Imperial College London.

In this episode Natalie talks to us about how donated breast milk is used by hospitals around the world to help give sick and premature babies the best possible start in life when mother’s milk is not available.

Natalie tells us why donor milk is needed more than ever, with babies being born to mothers with Covid 19 and too ill to feed them. The last three months in particular have seen hospitals and families in urgent need of donor milk for babies.

We also look at why it’s so important for pregnant people to get vaccinated and protect themselves against Covid 19.