Other People's Breast Milk

Kate Garraway Interview

As you say, breastfeeding can be extremely difficult for some mothers. Do you think that there is too much pressure put on mothers to continue with breastfeeding, when that may be counterproductive?
Yes. One of the things that would certainly help would be if we had a proper system of breast milk banks, where people could donate their milk, and babies in need of breast milk could get it from these banks. If it were men who had to breastfeed as opposed to women, there is a part of me that wonders if something more might have been done about this issue. Very little energy has been put into tackling this, and it's a real shame, because it would be a really valuable resource.

The life-saving properties of breast milk are also in evidence in the case of the cancer sufferer you meet. What's the story there?
It’s a man who has prostate cancer, and was told that he would need to have an operation that had a 90 per cent chance of rendering him either incontinent or impotent or both. If he didn't have the operation, they said he had three months to live. He didn't have the operation, but instead began taking breast milk. That was nine years ago, and his cancer hasn't progressed since. At one point, the woman who donates the milk for him was ill, and couldn't give him the milk for a few weeks, and in that time the number of his cancer cells went up considerably. It's a remarkable story. He believes that breast milk might actually contain properties that could hold the cure to cancer. I don't know if that's true, of course, but I certainly believe it warrants further medical investigation. After all, wouldn't it be amazing if women were walking around with the cure for cancer literally under their nose!

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