Best-feeding the baby : editorial

Human infants should be fed their own mothers' breastmilk. Where this is unavailable, replacement feeding becomes necessary. Through the ages and right up to the present, human milk has been supplied by other lactating women within or from outside the family. Donated breast-milk has been used extensively in milk banks, and numerous examples are known of women successfully initiating breast-feeding of unrelated infants despite not having recently been pregnant.