Breastmilk bank calls for more donors as new Pennsylvania law grants Medicaid coverage to infants in need
POTTSTOWN, Pa. (CBS) -- Not every mother can breastfeed. But some babies are so sick, they need breast milk to survive.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro's administration announced Wednesday Owen's Law will take effect this week, granting Medicaid coverage for donated breast milk, as a mother continues to donate in memory of her son.
"I lost my son Connor at 18 weeks gestation in April of 2019," said Kristin McCann of Pottstown.
Kristin McCann, of Pottstown, still holds the memory of her son dear. But it wasn't until after the births of her son Noah and daughter Ava that McCann realized she could do something to help keep the memory of Connor alive.
"We started noticing that our freezer supply was amounting to more than what she was ever going to need," McCann said.
McCann said she was inspired to start donating some of that extra milk last April, four years after Connor passed away.
"That was when I contacted Mid-Atlantic Mothers' Milk Bank to start the process to become a donor," McCann said.
"Our donors are our heroes," Denise O'Connor, executive director of Mid-Atlantic Mother's Milk Bank, said.
She said more than 300 donors like McCann were carefully screened before their donations headed to thousands of babies in homes and 60 hospitals on the East Coast, including in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
"And then we take that milk and we test and bottle and pasteurize it before it's distributed to our recipients, who are primarily babies who are in the neonatal intensive care unit, such as pre-term babies or babies that have certain cardiac or GI conditions," O'Connor said.
O'Connor said the milk bank will need a lot more donations after Wednesday's announcement by the Shapiro administration.
"That is a Medicaid mandate for coverage of donor milk for babies with certain medical conditions," O'Connor said.
That mandate goes into effect this week and will allow more babies to get donated breast milk. McCann said her son Connor would be impressed his family is helping so many others.
"We're always looking for charitable things to do in our son's memory," McCann said.