12 Towards Social Maternity: Where’s the Mother? ... 309further exemplifies the value of adopting Shaw’s concept of social
maternity.
Because the formal milk banking network is focused on providing
milk for premature or very sick infants in hospitals, and the supply even
for this use is insufficient, parents have been turning to the informal
networks provided by social media, or through friendship groups to fill
the gap. Providing a real monetary incentive for women to donate to
the banks could reduce the online sales, which are impossible to regu-
late, while still accommodating unpaid, informal sharing within com-
munities. As Skitolsky writes: ‘Because milk sharing is a new, radical
maternal practice, we need to adjust our social and economic practices
to allow room for it to develop in a safe and healthy way’ ( 2012 : 76).
In doing so, we should recognise that the labour of the maternal body
need not be occluded in order to acknowledge its benevolence.
Conclusion: In Support of Inclusive
Breastfeeding
In this chapter I support an argument for a hybrid system, within
which governments regulate the market for the remuneration of women
who supply their milk to hospital-based milk banks or pharmaceutical
companies, and provide guidelines to maximise the safety for individ-
uals informally buying and selling human milk online. Ideally, remu-
neration from milk banks would encourage women to sell their milk
through the regulated system, reducing informal sales, while leaving the
less risky process of informal, unremunerated peer-to-peer sharing as an
option within communities. As Goodwin notes, the existence of infor-
mal exchange relationships in organ donation indicates ‘that choice and
relationships matter in human biological exchange’ ( 2009 : 804), clearly
illustrated by MacDonald’s experience.
The lack of financial incentive, together with the relationship-build-
ing potential of informal sharing, is also more likely to result in the safe
handling of milk. Its recognition more broadly would encourage breast-
feeding advocacy groups and health professionals to provide guidelines