 "Many women in the US and UK are selling their breast milk online and raking in the moolah. Representational image/Reuters")
We all know about side hustles and moonlighting. Across the world, people are taking up side hustles to make an extra buck. But there are many who are quite literally milking their side hustles.
What are we talking about? We are talking about a growing number of new mothers in the United States as well as the United Kingdom who are doing just that: stockpiling their breast milk, selling it online, and cashing in big time.
And this milk business is no small joke — some of these ‘mammas’ are minting over $1,000 (Rs 86,628) a day in profit by selling their naturally available milk to other women and in some cases even bodybuilders, who believe that breast milk is the best to pump those biceps up.
Mammas’ big milk businesses
Meet Keira Williams, a 31-year-old NICU nurse from Atlanta in the US. She started selling her breast milk in May and since then sold more than 103 litres of it. And the money she has made from the business? She told the New York Post, “I have made $800 (Rs 69,302) in just one day.” She further noted in the same report that she began this business by using Facebook groups to make connections.
But Williams isn’t alone. Thirty-three-year-old Emily Enger, a teacher from Minnesota, is also in the breast milk business. She started selling her milk when she noticed a lot of social pressure about breastfeeding, telling The Times, “I feel like we started hearing about the positives of breastfeeding and I was like, OK, let’s do this.”
Today, Enger has been able to make $1,000 or more depending on how much she pumps. “At first I thought ‘I have this milk sitting there in the freezer, I might as well just give it away’,” Enger told The Times. “But then I thought, well you go to the store and you buy a gallon of milk or you go to the store and you buy formula. You can’t go into a hair salon, for example, and expect a free haircut. Time and, literally, energy has gone into producing milk. That should be valued.”
And the trend of selling breast milk isn’t just restricted to the US. In the UK too, many new moms are bagging and selling their breast milk for a premium. A woman, who identified as just Emily in a Daily Mail report, said of her job, “I’m a stay-at-home mum due to childcare expenses, and having worked in childcare myself and being on minimum wage I would have barely even had enough money after paying childcare costs.
“If men or women are willing to pay me to use my breast milk, which is great for everyone, contains amazing properties that are beneficial for all ages, then I would definitely just make some money from what I produce for free.”
Another said that she sells her milk so that she can stay longer at home without losing sleep over losing her salary. “I’m selling my extra breast milk because it’s extra money that may help to fund one to two months extra after my maternity pay ends.”
Breastfeeding movement — the fuel behind it
But what’s the reason these women are willing to pump, bag and sell their breast milk. While many of them are doing it for extra money, they note that there’s been a rise in breast milk owing to the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ movement powered by Robert F Kennedy Jr.
The US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has ordered an investigation on baby formula in the US, owing to which many new mothers to rethink what they are feeding their young and, in turn, cause a growth in demand for their breast milk.
On TikTok and other social media platform, a lot of discussion is on ‘breast is best’ in which mothers, and experts espouse the benefits of breast milk over everything else.
This has put a lot of pressure on those who are unable to produce enough milk or who are undergoing treatments during lactation. For instance, there’s a Facebook group called Breastmilk Community for All, which has 33,000 members. It is full of appeals from mothers who say they would rather their child have a stranger’s milk than store-bought formula.
“It was always my plan to breastfeed but I take medication that makes it unsafe,” Briana Westland, a member from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who spends around $1,200 a month to buy breast milk, told The Times. “Obviously fed is best but you can’t beat the nutritional quality of human milk, no matter what anyone says.”
The ultimate pump
But it’s not just mothers who are wanting to buy breast milk. Much of the demand comes from bodybuilders, who hail it to be a “super food” of sorts — perfect for pumping up their muscles.
Referred to as “liquid gold,” many bodybuilders note that breast milk has all the nutrients in order to achieve muscle gains and get into shape. In fact, the Netflix series (Un)Well even expanded on this idea, with James “JJ” Ritenour, an amateur bodybuilder saying, “If I wanna grow and be the best that I can, I’m going to eat like a baby, I’m going to sleep like a baby, and if drinking breast milk is a part of that, than it’s definitely an edge I’m going to take advantage of.”
Speaking on this notion that breast milk is the answer to get ripped, Brian St Pierre, a sports dietitian with Precision Nutrition, told Men’s Health, “I think the idea behind drinking breast milk for muscle growth is that it’s incredibly calorie and nutrient dense, and it has some additional healthy substances.
“Breast milk is designed to rapidly grow a human baby, so maybe people think a similar effect will happen to fully grown humans?”
However, many fitness experts argue that drinking breast milk offers no value at all. “There is nothing specific in breastmilk that will cause adults to gain muscle mass,” Dr Jacques Mortiz, the director of the division of gynaecology at Mount Sinai Roosevelt in New York, told ABC News.
Health concerns remain
However, there are legal and health ramifications to this side hustle and women who are trying to milk it to the maximum.
Many medical experts have sounded the alarm on this business, saying the milk could be contaminated and pumping extra milk could be harmful to the women. Rachel Watson, a lactation consultant, warned that pumping excess breast milk to sell could be detrimental to the mother and baby.
“Pumping an extra 60 ounces a day, for example, is not normal. Women can get all sorts of problems from over pumping, including mastitis, nipple blebs, nipple trauma, and the microbiome gets disrupted in the breast.
“Your body is not designed to produce one more drop than your baby needs, so it’s not physiologically normal to be doing this. And freezing also reduces the amount of fat, calories, and micronutrients in the milk,” she was quoted as telling the Daily Mail.
Medical experts also note that in most cases of breast milk being sold online, there’s been disease-causing bacteria. In some cases, breast milk had infectious disease, while in others there were environmental contaminants.
In fact, a study conducted by Nationwide Children’s Hospital in found that out of 101 samples of breast milk purchased online, 10 per cent of them was adulterated with cow’s milk or baby formula. Moreover, 75 per cent of the samples had pathogenic or disease-causing bacteria/viruses in it.
But all of this hasn’t stopped the many mothers who have chosen this to be their side hustle. As Megan Lemmons from Los Angeles was quoted as saying, “It’s the most empowering, beautiful thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. I’m proud of my milk money.”
With inputs from agencies