Would You Sell Your Breast Milk Online?

Selling your breast milk on the internet sounds odd. But there are moms doing it! Sites like Only The Breast are like Craigslist for breast milk: moms put up listings categorized by the age of their baby (0-2 months, 2-6 months, 6-12 months), and either ship their milk to buyers or meet locally. Prices range from $1 to $2.50 per ounce, and at least one mom, interviewed by Wired, has been able to pay her bills by selling her milk. Most buyers are moms who need more milk for their babies, but there are also some adult male buyers (there is a special section on the site for moms “willing to sell breast milk to men”).

There are also donation-based sites, like Human Milk 4 Human Babies and Eats on Feets, that connect moms with an oversupply of breast milk to moms in need. 

Donating your breast milk to one of these sites may seem less ethically questionable than selling it, but according to the FDA, neither option is medically safe: “When human milk is obtained directly from individuals or through the Internet, the donor is unlikely to have been adequately screened for infectious disease or contamination risk. In addition, it is not likely that the human milk has been collected, processed, tested, or stored in a way that reduces possible safety risks to the baby.”

The best option is donating to or buying from an established milk bank, like HMBANA.

Tell us: would you sell your breast milk?