About
Spartanburg Medical Center is a designated Milk Depot – an approved drop-off site for human breast milk from volunteer donors in our area. If mothers of babies in our neonatal intensive care unit can’t produce enough milk or are unable to breastfeed for other reasons, we may be able to provide donor milk from South Carolina’s Milk Bank.
Babies at Risk: How Your Milk Helps
Human breast milk offers babies ideal nutrition and health benefits for babies and moms. It may also reduce the risk of SIDS and serious diseases such as necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). Premature and low birth-weight babies are at higher risk, but all babies can get this life-threatening intestinal-tract disease.
How to Donate Breast Milk
You’re likely to qualify to donate breast milk if:
- You’re generally healthy
- You don’t routinely take medications or herbal supplements, with certain exceptions
- You do not smoke, vape or use tobacco products including nicotine patches or nicotine gum
- You do not use illegal drugs
- You’re willing to get a blood test
- You can transport your milk to a depot drop-off site, like Spartanburg Medical Center
You are not eligible to donate milk if:
- You have a positive blood test result for HIV, HTLV, Hepatitis B or C, or Syphilis
- You or your sexual partner is at risk for HIV
- You have received an organ transplant, tissue transplant, or a blood transfusion in the last four months
- You regularly consume more than two alcoholic drinks per day
- Between 1980 and 1996, you were in the United Kingdom for more than three months
There are three easy steps to becoming a milk donor:
- Complete a 10-to-15-minute phone screening.
- Complete and return an informational packet; this will include a form for you and your baby’s doctor to fill out.
- Have a complimentary blood test done.
*Be sure to do the phone screening before you go for the test.
To learn more about how to become a milk donor visit: