Daycare Gives Baby The Wrong Breast Milk, In Case You Didn’t Have Enough To Worry About

Breastfeeding your child isn’t always easy. There’s the issue of supply, dealing with a poor latch and trying to establish some semblance of a schedule. If you’re a working mom, there’s also the fun challenge of pumping at work and making sure your child has enough to drink while you’re away. As if all that wasn’t enough, here’s one more thing moms need to think about– how you would handle it if your daycare gave your baby another person’s breast milk.

I’d like to raise a glass of milk to PopSugar, for sharing the story of a Reddit user who turned to the internet for advice after learning that her daycare had fed her baby someone else’s breast milk. The mom, who goes by the username ferretmiracles, said the mix-up happened because there was a worker in the room that wasn’t normally there and that worker accidentally thought her baby was someone else and gave him the wrong milk.

The daycare did the stand up thing by calling mom once they realized the mistake, and they monitored the baby’s breathing and temperature, which was normal, until dad came to pick him up.

Reddit users are torn on how they would handle the situation if it happened to them. Some think the incident is no big deal. They pointed out that if the other mother was breastfeeding, it’s unlikely she would be taking any medications, using any illegal substances or have any transmittable diseases as she wouldn’t want to pass those things onto her own child. They pointed out that kids eat all sorts of things they aren’t supposed to and turn out alright. Plus, had the daycare kept the mistake a secret mom wouldn’t have never suspected anything since the baby is okay. One user even said she would be more upset if someone improperly buckled her child into their car seat.

All of these people are more rational than I am. I have a habit of overreacting, so even though there are donor milk programs that I would have no problem using, and I give my own kids milk from an animal which, when you really think about it, is more bizarre than giving them milk from another human, I know my initial reaction to my baby being fed someone else’s breast milk would be to flip out and race him to the emergency room.

Others agreed with me that the mix-up was cause to be very concerned. The risk of infectious diseases aside, they pointed out that the milk could have come from someone on medications or with a diet that the baby could have allergies too.

Only one troll made the “At least it wasn’t formula argument” so I’m going to say that’s one battle in the Mommy Wars we can declare as finally over.

To her credit, ferretmiracles is handling the situation with the grace of Kate Middleton. In an update to her original post, she stated she and her husband were very pleased with the daycare’s honesty and how the situation is being handled. The daycare has instituted a new policy of putting name tags on the children whenever there is an unfamiliar worker in the room, and the other mother has provided her medical information and has offered to undergo any additional screenings ferretmiracles would like, if any.

I’m glad the baby is fine and that everyone is handling the situation with level heads, but if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go call the pediatrician and make sure my kids are up to date on all their shots.

(image: Dmitry Lobanov/Shutterstock.com)