breast milk donations and banking

U.S. health officials are urging parents not to casually use breast milk from others mothers who haven't had their milk screened because of the risk of disease or contamination from bacteria, drugs or chemicals, according to a statement issued by the Food and Drug Administration.

"FDA recommends against feeding your baby breast milk acquired directly from individuals or through the Internet," the agency wrote. Instead, parents should talk to their doctors and use breast milk from special human milk banks, it said.

Some, however, call the agency's warning misguided.

"It won't stop us mothers," Emma Kwasnica, co-founder of Eats on Feets Global, a networking site that facilitates local woman-to-woman milk sharing via regional chapter pages on Facebook,  told Reuters.

"They can't possibly regulate what women do with their bodies and their milk," she said. "We assert that women are capable of making informed choices and of sharing human milk with one another in a safe and ethical manner."

The FDA on Thursday plans to release documents related to a public meeting held earlier this week that addressed breast milk donations and banking. Just 10 milk banks are operating in the U.S., and demand far outstrips supply. Premature infants are especially in need of donated breast milk, health officials say.