VALHALLA – The Sirens Women’s Motor Club of New York is on the road on a very special ride. They are traveling in a caravan bound for Buffalo carrying breast milk to 54 different hospitals throughout the state; their lifesaving cargo will be donated to facilities with neonatal care units that treat babies born prematurely.
The milk is provided courtesy of the New York Milk Bank, a Westchester County-based nonprofit that receives breast milk from healthy lactating women, pasteurizes it, and distributes it across the tri-state area.
“We are one of only three non-profit milk banks licensed to deliver donor milk to New York hospitals,” said Julie Bouchet-Horwitz, executive director of the organization. “We’ve delivered almost 400,000 ounces of donor milk since opening. But there’s much more to do. We estimate that for premature babies alone, the need for donated breast milk is over 500,000 ounces per year.”
One in every 10 children in New York is born prematurely, and for those babies healthy breast milk is vitally important to survival. Babies born prematurely have a heightened risk of developing necrotizing enterocolitis (NCE), a fatal intestinal disease that can be prevented by consuming human milk. For those children and for foster babies, babies born through surrogacy, and babies whose mothers simply can’t produce enough milk, a steady supply of pasteurized breast milk is critical, said Bouchet-Horwitz. “Thanks to the efforts of the New York Milk Bank, they’ll have just that.”
She said to meet the need for donor human milk, they raised over $200,000 to finance a state-of-the-art processing facility in Valhalla. “So we now have plenty of milk, and are ready to help nourish many more babies. We need to increase awareness among parents who are unable to produce breast milk themselves. And that’s one of the inspirations behind our Milk Caravan.”
Bouchet-Horwitz originally got the idea for her program while watching bikers weave in and out of traffic in New York City. She soon realized that bikers would be able to deliver milk faster than other couriers and would also generate a lot of publicity for the cause. The director is very proud to partner with female riders and believes they “are the perfect delivery system”.
State Senator Peter Harckham attended Saturday’s kickoff to see the Sirens off on the first leg of their journey which will see them travel through Binghamton, Ithaca, and Lancaster.
The senator, who has been a leader in the state government’s efforts to combat the opioid epidemic, considers the New York Milk Bank an important part of that fight. The milk that they provide is “critical for babies, especially babies who are detoxing from mothers who have been addicted to opioids.
