Areas of Science

Human milk is not only the perfect nutrition for human babies, it is an amazing dynamic, bioactive, species-specific tissue. Human milk samples can help inform many fields of scientific research. These fields may include:

Benefits

Your participation will contribute to medical research, which will ultimately help the medically vulnerable. You will not receive any compensation for your participation.

What a sample of milk will not do

We are fierce supporters of breastfeeding and our organization believes that human milk is essential for the optimal health of little humans. As part of the materials transfer agreement, researchers are required to sign a statement that states that their research is not involved with creating a substitute for human milk.

Financial information

The Human Milk Science Institute and Biobank is a program of the nonprofit Mid-Atlantic Mothers’ Milk Bank. There are significant costs associated with the collection, storage, and distribution of samples along with the management of data. Researchers are charged for samples and services.

What Samples and Information are Contributed by Participants?

All Biobank participants are asked to provide the following:

• Signed consent
• Completion of a research questionnaire
• Up to 12-100 ounces of expressed milk. Volume varies dependent on milk bank participation and milk availability.

All data collected will be de-identified, meaning that researchers who use the samples will be given no information that could possibly link the sample provided by the participant to them or their baby.