Young moms cashing in on taste for breast milk
By Xu Chi |
July 13, 2013, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
AS China's affluent adults acquire a taste for human breast milk in the belief it can boost their health, young mothers are cashing in by selling it in Shanghai, Beijing and other cities.
Although the mothers say the milk should only be sold for babies and to mothers who can't produce enough of their own, some admit that adults recovering from surgery are among their customers.
One young mother is offering her breast milk for sale on baby care forum babytree.com, saying she has produced too much milk for her child and has stored it in packs that now have filled her refrigerator and freezer.
She said the milk could last for more than four months if kept frozen.
On e-commerce platform Taobao.com, a Shanghai-based vendor is selling milk in 250ml packs for 40 yuan (US$6.5).
She said she began storing the milk so there would be enough for her baby as it grew older but now she had to sell it as there was no longer any space to keep it.
She said buyers would have to collect the packs from her home as it might go bad during delivery.
She said the milk should only be used to feed babies, but some buyers had asked her if the milk was good for patients recovering from major surgery.
In Beijing, a reporter with Beijing Youth Daily said she purchased five packs of breast milk from a mother for 100 yuan.
The newspaper said the reporter posed as a customer and visited a vendor's home.
Her freezer was full of packs complete with production dates on each.
She said the milk could be stored for up to a year.
The reporter asked her if it was genuine breast milk. The vendor said she had been selling the milk since April and no one had ever doubted whether it was breast milk.
The newspaper said that while there was no specific law to supervise the trade in breast milk, Chinese law did rule that breast milk should not be considered a commodity to be sold.
Previously, it was reported that young mothers were being hired by agencies to breastfeed rich adults in south China's Shenzhen City, earning up to 15,000 yuan a month for the service.
Customers ranged from the parents who had lost faith in Chinese baby formula to adults who believed breast milk would boost their health, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.
Nutrition expert Zhang Maoxiang of No. 2 Shenzhen People's Hospital said the service posed safety risks if the mother providing the breast milk was ill.
Although the mothers say the milk should only be sold for babies and to mothers who can't produce enough of their own, some admit that adults recovering from surgery are among their customers.
One young mother is offering her breast milk for sale on baby care forum babytree.com, saying she has produced too much milk for her child and has stored it in packs that now have filled her refrigerator and freezer.
She said the milk could last for more than four months if kept frozen.
On e-commerce platform Taobao.com, a Shanghai-based vendor is selling milk in 250ml packs for 40 yuan (US$6.5).
She said she began storing the milk so there would be enough for her baby as it grew older but now she had to sell it as there was no longer any space to keep it.
She said buyers would have to collect the packs from her home as it might go bad during delivery.
She said the milk should only be used to feed babies, but some buyers had asked her if the milk was good for patients recovering from major surgery.
In Beijing, a reporter with Beijing Youth Daily said she purchased five packs of breast milk from a mother for 100 yuan.
The newspaper said the reporter posed as a customer and visited a vendor's home.
Her freezer was full of packs complete with production dates on each.
She said the milk could be stored for up to a year.
The reporter asked her if it was genuine breast milk. The vendor said she had been selling the milk since April and no one had ever doubted whether it was breast milk.
The newspaper said that while there was no specific law to supervise the trade in breast milk, Chinese law did rule that breast milk should not be considered a commodity to be sold.
Previously, it was reported that young mothers were being hired by agencies to breastfeed rich adults in south China's Shenzhen City, earning up to 15,000 yuan a month for the service.
Customers ranged from the parents who had lost faith in Chinese baby formula to adults who believed breast milk would boost their health, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.
Nutrition expert Zhang Maoxiang of No. 2 Shenzhen People's Hospital said the service posed safety risks if the mother providing the breast milk was ill.
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