Breast Milk
At the Dawn of New Discoveries
Women have been nourishing their babies with nature’s best nutrition since the dawn of time. Yet in this modern day and age, we still have more questions than answers about what exactly makes human milk “liquid gold” for babies. Through our Mommy’s Milk Human Milk Research Biorepository, we’re building a research database of human milk that will allow scientists to evaluate and better understand nature’s best nutrition. As the first of its kind in the nation, we are at the dawn of new breakthroughs and discoveries.
Ready to understand the full immunologic, developmental and nutritional benefits of human milk? We are too.
Mommy’s Milk
Human Milk Research Biorepository
Mommy’s Milk Human Milk Research Biorepository strives to understand the numerous benefits human milk offers at a molecular level and to use these findings to improve the health and development of all children. This initiative demonstrates our commitment to human milk and lactation discoveries. We are making it easier for scientists to perform research with standardized, sterile and indexed human milk samples. But this research depends on the community’s support—we wouldn’t be able to do this without the generosity of lactating parents.
The Center for Better Beginnings actively recruits people who are lactating to donate human milk to the Mommy’s Milk program. Staff work around the clock to collect samples from people across the United States, ensuring each donation is safely stored no matter if it is sent in by mail or collected in-person. With each two ounce human milk donation, we can power fifteen innovative research studies!
Want to contribute to liquid gold discoveries? Submit your contact information to learn more about donating your human milk to research!
Mommy’s Milk Human Milk Research Biorepository is a multidisciplinary research initiative of the Center for Better Beginnings in the UC San Diego Department of Pediatrics and the UC San Diego Clinical and Translation Research Institute (ACTRI)-Center for Life Course Research, with the support of Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego, Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women & Newborns, and MotherToBaby Pregnancy Studies. In addition, the ACTRI Biorepository provides long-term storage of our human milk samples. The Biorepository was supported by the National Institutes of Health, Grant UL1TR000100 of CTSA funding prior to August 13, 2015 and is currently supported by Grant UL1TR001442 of CTSA funding beginning August 13, 2015 and beyond.
For more information, visit Mommy’s Milk Human Milk Biorepository’s website. If you are a researcher, please submit your request for a human milk specimen using the online form.
