- Parents are sharing breast milk with COVID-19 antibodies in an attempt to help protect their kids.
- It's unclear how protective the milk is, and sharing outside of a milk bank can be risky.
- Lactating women giving antibody-rich milk to their older children is harmless but may not be worth it.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
Some parents looking to protect their kids from COVID-19 are turning to an unconventional elixir: breast milk containing COVID-19 antibodies.
Some who can't or no longer breastfeed are seeking it from moms in their communities or online, and other lactating women are sneaking it in their older kids' meals, Intelligencer's Kevin Dugan reported.
Research has shown vaccinated and previously infected moms develop protective COVID-19 antibodies in their breast milk.
But it's unclear how effective they are at preventing disease in babies, how much milk would offer protection, and how long that protection would last. Sharing breast milk outside of a milk bank can be risky, too, and most kids don't get infected by COVID-19 as easily as young and older adults, nor do they tend to get as sick if they do.
But some parents say in the absence of a vaccine approved for little ones, using breast milk is a risk worth taking. "If there's a way I can do something that offers a level of protection to my child, I'd like to try," Courtney Carson, a mom of a four-month-old in Brooklyn whom Dugan interviewed told Good Morning America.
What we know about COVID-19 antibodies in breast milk
Early in the pandemic, research showed how moms who've had COVID-19 can pass protective antibodies on in utero and through breast milk.
Study author Rebecca Powell told Insider her more recent research, which has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, has shown that protection seems to last for up to 10 months, the longest her team has been able to track previously infected moms.
"We're finding that these antibodies are really, really durable over time, which is great," said Powell, an assistant professor of medicine and infectious diseases at Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine.
She encourages everyone, including breastfeeding people who've had COVID-19, to get vaccinated, though. Not only safer than getting COVID-19, recent studies have shown pregnant people who get a COVID-19 vaccine also pass antibodies to their babies in utero and through breast milk, potentially shielding the newborns from the virus when they're most vulnerable.
But there's still a lot to learn about how strong and long-lasting vaccine-generated protection from COVID-19 is in babies, as well as whether one vaccine is better for breastfeeding moms than others. "If the research interest and money was there, we could be always designing vaccines with breastfeeding women in mind," Powell said.
Milk sharing outside of a milk bank comes with risks
The potential benefits to any type of antibody-laced breast milk now has some parents who can't or no longer breastfeed looking to friends, neighbors, and strangers online. Carson, the mom Intelligencer and GMA featured, is one of them. She received three offers after inquiring about it in a Brooklyn parents' Facebook app.
But the FDA discourages sharing breast milk in that way (as opposed to going through a milk bank), since it can carry infectious diseases, medications, environmental contaminants, and drug metabolites. In work evaluating over 100 samples of breast milk sold online before the pandemic, scientists found most had disease-causing bacteria, some so much it resembled sewer water.
Shared breast milk may also be inappropriately handled. The "risks definitely outweigh any potential benefits," ABC News' chief medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton said on GMA.
Powell told Insider if you are going to seek or share breast milk, the safest bet is to do so with someone you know very well. "Milk sharing can be a really great thing, but you have to know the risks and context," she said. "Just anonymously getting it is probably not the way to go."
Some lactating women are giving their older kids breast milk with COVID-19 antibodies
Some moms with COVID-19 antibody-rich breastmilk are reconsidering its value in their own families.
Powell said she's received emails from lactating moms wondering if they should wait longer to wean their kids or pump their antibody-laden milk in order to spike their older kids' eggs and sippy cups.
"It took a pandemic for people to think about and realize [that] there's always been really good stuff in your milk," said Powell, who's currently breastfeeding her 3-year-old herself.
There aren't risks to giving older kids breast milk, she said, but it's unclear if doing so would offer much protection against COVID-19 since the children's diets are more varied than infants. The amount, then, is the limiting factor, she said, and parents' peace of mind and time matter too.
"If it's an easy thing to do and it makes you happy," Powell said, "there's no harm." On the other hand, no one should feel pressured to pump for their older kids or attempt to re-lactate. "There's not enough data to say you should absolutely do that," she said. "There's enough pressure on moms to begin with."