Milk Kinship and Implications for Human Milk Banking: A Review

Abstract

Context: Articles discussing human milk banking and the sharing of milk among women have increasingly been appearing in the medical and nursing literature in the early-21st century. The articles usually focus on Western-style milk banks, as well as informal ways of providing women’s milk to premature or sick infants and others in need of human milk. This article will review this literature within the context of Muslims living in predominantly Islamic countries and the potential effects of migration within a country or to another country on knowledge of these issues. Evidence Acquisition: Articles consulted were sourced from the bibliographies of the author’s previous articles and the references in other articles consulted during previous research. Following that, a search of the term “milk kinship” was conducted on Medline via Web of Science and in PubMed, but all relevant articles had already been accessed. Results: A relatively few articles have discussed these matters in the Islamic context, to acknowledge the constraints that the creation of a kinship relationship by milk under Islamic law places on how breastfeeding or breast milk is shared. Nevertheless, these issues, and how needy infants can be provided with the life-giving breast milk they need, have begun to receive attention in international journals. Yet Muslim mothers may not be conversant with the issue of milk kinship in relation to milk banking or milk donation. Conclusions: Some recent authors have made recommendations on how human milk donation can be achieved in the hospital setting through complying with the religious requirements. Donated human milk can be used in the hospital, provided the conditions are met.

Keywords

• breast feeding
• milk
• human
• milk banks
• islam