Informal Breast Milk Sharing in a Muslim Country: The Frequency, Practice, Risk Perception, and Risk Reduction Strategies Used by Mothers
Onat, Guliz and Karakoc, Hediye
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Abstract
Introduction: Turkey is the first and only Islamic country which has
initiated a process to establish a milk bank. However, the effort was
abandoned because of religious concerns. Informal breast milk sharing
has become a practical alternative to some. Research Aims: To document
the religious concerned views and attitudes toward breast milk sharing
and to determine risk reduction strategies of mothers in an Islamic
country. Materials and Methods: Participants comprised volunteers from
relevant fforums or members of social media groups on the Internet. The
participants (n = 435) were divided into three groups: those who did not
share milk (n = 371), donors (n = 48), and receivers (n = 16). A
prepared questionnaire was used for each group as a data collection
tool. Results: 14.7\% of the participants were experienced in informal
milk sharing. Seventy-five percent of the recipients and 85.4\% of the
donors did not enter into a written agreement. Religious rules on milk
sharing were reflected in three ways: asking about the infant's gender,
limiting the number of sharing parties to 3, and knowing the identity of
the donor or recipient. Of the participants, 77.3\% believed that it was
necessary to establish a milk bank in Turkey. However, 19.5\% of the
respondents reported that they would not feed their infant with donor
milk because of reasons related to the issue of ``milk kinship{''} in
Islam. Conclusions: Informal milk sharing is a reality and risks similar
to those stated in the literature are undertaken. Milk sharing is
frequently performed independent of religious concerns and commercial
purposes, Comprehensive measures to minimize disease transmission are
not routinely implemented.... Show more Show less