13 Bio-Intimate Economies of Breastmilk ... 331the risk of cross-infection, as a staff member is usually dealing with more
than one baby or mother at a time. It is not the case at Morgan’s work-
place, but on some Units staff wear gloves (and sometimes masks) to
dispense breastmilk and during tube feeds. While the rationale for wear-
ing gloves is to ensure hygienic standards, this procedure may reinforce
and question the perception of breastmilk as liquid gold, thus resulting
in constructions of breastmilk in terms of what Hausman ( 2003 ) calls
‘doublespeak’. One mother in Bartle’s ( 2010 ) study, for instance, thought
that the nurse who assisted her to latch her baby onto the breast wore
gloves because she thought the mother was ‘dirty’. As Twigg ( 2000 )
points out in her research on care and bodywork, practices which bring
health professionals into contact with other people’s bodies are marked
by ambivalence. Because working on and with other people’s bodies is
often regarded as demeaning, it is offset by distancing techniques such as
the use of screens or gloves, which serve to delineate the caregiver from
contact with abject bodily zones. For staff who work in NICUs, wear-
ing gloves has a dual purpose, intertwining the biological with the ethical,
thereby transforming breastmilk from a potentially contaminated bodily
fluid associated with risk to a medicine fit for premature babies.
Donor Milk Use
The use of donor milk at Morgan’s tertiary NICU and maternity facility
has been in place for over four years, with nine donors and 14 recipients
in 2012, seven donors and 16 recipients in 2013, nine donors and 22
recipients in 2014, and eight donors and 31 recipients in 2015. While
a few babies received milk from more than one donor over this period,
the majority received donor milk from a single donor.
The most common clinical indication for receiving donor milk is
due to low maternal milk supply, for which there is often no known
cause (see Gribble 2014b). In such cases, information on ways to help
increase milk supply is given, including using natural methods of stim-
ulating supply or supplements such as Fenugreek or Domperidone, a
medication which has the side effect of increasing prolactin levels.
Mothers who are unable to supply enough breastmilk often feel a sense