Providing the best start to your baby’s life

Mothers’ Milk Bank is a nonprofit organization founded in 1974 to provide Pasteurized Donor Human Milk (PDHM) to infants in need. Our mission is to help infants thrive by making donated breastmilk safe and accessible. We are registered with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), accredited by the Human Milk Banking Association of North America (HMBANA), a licensed tissue bank in California and Maryland. We distribute PDHM to hospitals and families across all states, including Hawaii and Alaska. Our vision is to contribute to the best start in life for all babies. We do so by helping mothers succeed in breastfeeding, supporting lactation groups, supplying breast pumps to low-income families, and organizing events to promote breastmilk donations.

Most of our recipients are premature infants in neonatal intensive care units. These are a few other examples of medical reasons that a doctor would prescribe donor milk:

• Failing to thrive on formula
• Death or absence of mother
• Failing immune systems
• Insufficient lactation of mother or supplemental while mother is gaining her supply during the first few weeks of the baby’s life.
• Adopted, foster, or surrogate babies whose families believe in the value of breast milk
• Illness or health risk from biological mother that prevents or requires interruption in breastfeeding.

Donor breast milk offers all of the benefits of human milk for infants including:

• Promotes brain development
• Lowers respiratory infections
• Easy digestibility
• Acts like a vaccine by transferring antibodies (Anti-Virus and Anti-Allergies)
• Lowers the risk of asthma, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), obesity, and type 2 diabetes

Receiving Milk at the Hospital:

The San Jose Mothers’ Milk bank provides donor milk to many hospitals across the country. If you would like to receive donor milk at your hospital we recommend contacting your doctor and asking if they provide donor milk for newborn infants. Hospitals in California must have a tissue bank license in order to provide donor milk to patients. We too have a tissue license. Therefore we are one of the few milk banks who can collaborate with California hospitals in full compliance.

Receiving Milk at Home:

The San Jose Mothers’ Milk Bank allows for patients to receive a maximum of 40 ounces of donor milk without a prescription. All requests after the first 40 ounces require a prescription

In order to obtain a long term supply of donor milk we ask that you contact your doctor to discuss writing a prescription for donor milk. We have our very own prescription form and do not accept notepad prescriptions.

Please click the blue link below to see a copy of our New Recipient Brochure:

Donor Milk Recipient Brochure

Please fill out each field of our Get Milk Form and our Recipient Coordinator will contact you within 72 business hours to give you all of the information that you need.