This Man Is Drinking Breast Milk Coffee, From His Daughter’s Supply, to Cure Cancer

When Metro ran an article titled, “Mother Expresses Breast Milk for Her Own Dad’s Morning Coffee,” it was guaranteed to get clicks. It sounds weird and salacious and bizarre, and of course everyone would want to know why on Earth a woman would want her father to drink her breast milk, and what non-creepy reason a father could have for wanting to drink breast milk coffee. But it turns out it’s all the daughter’s idea, and her reasons are really sweet and sad. And yes, it’s still pretty weird, but mostly it’s just really sad and you hope the best for them, because 30-year-old Jill Turner talked her dad into drinking breast milk coffee because she thinks it will help cure his cancer.

Breast milk has scores of health benefits associated with it. Using it to cure an eye infection or a rash is a common household remedy, but it’s a running joke that some breastfeeding advocates would apply breast milk to a broken arm. One of the properties often attributed to breast milk is that it can reduce instances of cancer later in life, and sometimes people extrapolate that into thinking that drinking human breast milk can even cure cancer in an adult who already has it.  There isn’t really any evidence of that, but when the alternative is cancer, of course a person would be willing to try anything.

Jill Turner’s father was first diagnosed with colon cancer in 2015, but she didn’t have the baby then. When it came back in April, 2016, she was devastated. Then in October she had a baby, and she had breast milk.

“I was researching online when I came across an article for alternative uses for breast milk,” she said. She’d already used breast milk on common things like baby eye infections and eczema, so she showed up at the table and made a case to her family about why her father should drink her breast milk as a potential cancer cure.

She says they thought she was crazy and she thought there was no way her father would go for it, but he did. Drinking breast milk certainly wasn’t going to hurt anything, and when faced with cancer, why not try everything?

So now Jill’s dad drinks her breast milk in his coffee every morning. He’s still undergoing normal cancer treatment, and just taking the milk as a supplement. Her mom got a little fridge just for the milk, and Jill labels it with the pumping date and the expiration date. She’s been trying to get him to drink more of it, like with his porridge instead of just with his coffee, and she’s working hard to boost her supply to make more. She says her father’s been drinking her breast milk for a month, and when she talks about it, the optimism is palpable.

“So far he’s only been drinking it for a month, so we don’t know if it has helped in any way just yet, but he is having more tests done in a few weeks so it will be interesting to see what the results are,” she said.

“We will be seeing an oncologist in four weeks’ time who regularly takes my dad’s bloods so it will be interesting to see if there is any change in his levels,” she said.

It seems unlikely that drinking breast milk coffee could cure cancer, but it’s not going to hurt anything, and if it makes them feel more proactive, hopeful, and optimistic, then that’s great. I hope he really does get better soon.

(Image: iStockPhoto / BonNontawat)