Texas Mother Breaks Breast Milk Record After Donating 87 Gallons to Charity
A mother from northern Texas has been declared the new Guinness World Record holder for the "Most Breast Milk Donated," after donating 87 gallons of breast milk to charity between June 2011 and March 2012.
Alicia Richman, a 28-year-old mother from Granbury, had a son last March and found that she was producing more milk than she needed to feed him, according to a press release.
"I was so blessed to have more milk than I needed," she said in the release. "I pumped at work, on vacations, in the car. And I never had to buy formula."
Richman said that after giving birth to her son, who is now 19 months old, she soon managed to fill two freezers with pumped milk, which is far more than he would ever need.
When she ran out of freezer space to store her excess milk, she decided to put her extraordinary ability to help others. She had learned about Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas, a nonprofit organization that provides breast milk to premature or critically ill babies in intensive care whose own mothers can't.
She had started donating to the bank in June 2011, and by March of this year she donated a total of 11,115 ounces or 86.8 gallons, crushing the previous "Most Breast Milk Donated" record by more than 23 gallons.
"Three ounces of donor human milk could be as much as nine feedings for a premature baby," said Amy Vickers, executive director of The Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas. "Alicia's generous gift of human milk has fed hundreds, and more likely, thousands of premature babies across the United States."
"We know that she's changed lives all over Texas and beyond, and we are proud to see her earn this recognition from Guinness World Records," Vickers added.
"I feel like God blessed me with plenty of milk and I need to do something special with it," she said, according to the Daily Mail. "There's a need for it, little babies everywhere are sick and they need breast milk to survive, and I wanted to give them that."
Richman encourages other women to beat her record, adding that she had decided to pursue a Guinness World Record designation to raise awareness of milk banks.
However, she said that she plans beating her own record.
"I encourage everyone to beat me," she says, adding "though I'm planning to beat my own record when we have a second baby."