Is it safe to feed my baby unpasturized breast milk?

Is it safe to feed my baby unpasturized breast milk?

Of course! This is the natural state milk comes in, is it not? In fact, pasteurizing destroys some of the valuable anti-infective content of the milk. The only concern is if there are bacteria contaminating the milk, which is relatively rare. Or, if there are other infectious diseases that may be inactivated by pasteurization. This can be avoided by carefully screening your donor (ask about lifestyle, hygiene, etc). Best if you can see health records, but if those aren't available then you can get a pretty good feel by asking the donor.

I've had close to 20 donors for my little one (none of the milk was pasteurized) and she is healthy.

Sweet... Thank you for your response. I feel much better.

Absolutely! If it wasn't safe, mothers wouldn't even be able to ever nurse their babies directly! Ditto the pp! Both of mine drink unpasteurized milk daily, straight from the tap.

very well put! thank you

Please see this posting for very extensive information about this subject.
https://milkshare.forumotion.com/t1421-questions-about-receiving-bm-pasteurization#3769

You can pasteurize the milk if you feel more comfortable with it and this does NOT reduce substantially reduce the anti-microbial properties of the milk, but it will inactivate known pathogenic viruses such as hepatatis and HIV. We should all remember that human milk is a biologically active fluid and while breast to mouth feeding should be completely sanitary, expressing has the possibility of picking up pathogens, thugh this is unintentional by the donors.

I am a recipient who has received a hugh amount of milk from an amazing donor who showed me her medical records to verify that she was HIV and hepatatis negative. I also have a great rapport with her and think she is an amazing, generous individual. That said, as a scientist, I know how easy it is to infect things without intention and also know that there are uncharcterized pathogens in living fluids. We do not know the effects of these microbes in developing bodies yet.

Pasterization (rapid, 5 minutes in boiling water) is a very effectve measure that does NOT impair the quality of the milk. The FDA also have a useful powerpoint presentation about the myths of pasteurization.

The link is
www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/FoodSafety/.../UCM166067.ppt
There are a lot of slides with the interesting stuff about pasteurization at the end.

Yes! I am a donor, and I'd like to think that moms who donate their time and effort to pump their precious breast milk and feed their own babies wouldn't donate milk that a baby shouldn't have.