VOA标准英语2011--Fast-Growing Internet Communities Share

Fast-Growing Internet Communities Share Human Milk

In yet another instance of an Internet-driven social phenomenon, a growing number of women in the U.S. are joining on-line breast-milk-sharing communities. Their aim is to provide human milk to new mothers who can't breastfeed their babies. While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued warnings about the potential health risks of this practice, advocates sing the praises of both breast milk and their online community.
Lindsey Ward¹, 23, has two children. Because she isn't able to produce enough breast milk, she fed her first child formula. But when her second baby, Joshua, arrived nine months ago, she decided² to give him the best of all baby foods: human breast milk.
"When he is ready to eat I take one of these out and put it in cold water so I can thaw³ it out," said Ward. "Right now, I have milk from three different women in this freezer."
For the past 9 months Ward has used breast milk from 15 women. She met them through a variety of Internet-based social networks, and online breast-milk sharing groups such as Eats on Feets, and MilkShare.
"What I would do is I post on the [Facebook] 'wall' something like 'I need milk for my 9-month-old son,'" Ward explained.
And within a few hours, women respond. They chat online; they agree to meet to pick up the bags of frozen milk. No money changes hands. Ward says her baby has been healthy and gained weight normally on his breast-milk diet. She says she's also made great friends, like Amanda Brewer⁴.
Amanda has four children and has breastfed them all. She became a member of Eats on Feets when she had to stop feeding her two month-old baby temporarily because the dairy milk she was drinking was passing through her own milk and triggering an allergic⁵ reaction in her baby.
"So we found two donor⁶ moms who didn't drink dairy either and so they donated to him for two weeks," Brewer called.
After two weeks off dairy, she was able to feed her baby again. But in the meantime, because her breasts were still producing milk, she pumped and stored it for donation.
Since then she has been both a donor and recipient⁷.
There are many reasons to give or receive breast milk. Heidi Briguglio, the Washington DC regional coordinator⁸ for Eats on Feets, had a personal reason for founding the chapter: "I was adopted when I was a baby, I was three days old and my parents adopted me. My mother would have done this for me," she explained.
Briguglio has always breast fed her 19-month-old baby Azure⁹ and has not donated milk yet. She says the number of lactating women joining breast milk-sharing communities online is growing worldwide.
As these groups proliferate¹⁰, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning against feeding babies with breast milk obtained from donors¹¹ not screened for infectious diseases.
Dr. Stephen Wall, an adviser¹² for the international organization Save the Children, supports breast milk-sharing, but he echoes the FDA warning:
"The benefits of breast milk, over formula have been demonstrated for pre-term babies, so there is a benefit in having breast milk, but only in the setting where that baby can be provided that safely without risk of infection and without risk of contamination," noted¹³ Wall.
Some of those risks include the Hepatitis B or C viruses, and HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. But milk-sharing groups like Eats on Feets believe the safety issue is an individual responsibility.
"The responsibility for safety and knowing their source, getting information about how they want to handle the milk is up to the mothers themselves," Briguglio explained.
For Lindsey Ward and Amanda Brewer, as for many other women meeting through the Internet and sharing their breast milk with many babies, it's a matter of trust and mother's instinct.

1 ward   

n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开

参考例句：

• The hospital has a medical ward and a surgical ward.这家医院有内科病房和外科病房。
• During the evening picnic,I'll carry a torch to ward off the bugs.傍晚野餐时，我要点根火把，抵挡蚊虫。

2 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

3 thaw   

v.（使）融化，（使）变得友善；n.融化，缓和

参考例句：

• The snow is beginning to thaw.雪已开始融化。
• The spring thaw caused heavy flooding.春天解冻引起了洪水泛滥。

4 brewer   

n. 啤酒制造者

参考例句：

• Brewer is a very interesting man. 布鲁尔是一个很有趣的人。
• I decided to quit my job to become a brewer. 我决定辞职，做一名酿酒人。

5 allergic   

adj.过敏的，变态的

参考例句：

• Alice is allergic to the fur of cats.艾丽斯对猫的皮毛过敏。
• Many people are allergic to airborne pollutants such as pollen.许多人对空气传播的污染物过敏，比如花粉。

6 donor   

n.捐献者；赠送人；(组织、器官等的)供体

参考例句：

• In these cases,the recipient usually takes care of the donor afterwards.在这类情况下，接受捐献者以后通常会照顾捐赠者。
• The Doctor transplanted the donor's heart to Mike's chest cavity.医生将捐赠者的心脏移植进麦克的胸腔。

7 recipient   

a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器

参考例句：

• Please check that you have a valid email certificate for each recipient. 请检查是否对每个接收者都有有效的电子邮件证书。
• Colombia is the biggest U . S aid recipient in Latin America. 哥伦比亚是美国在拉丁美洲最大的援助对象。

8 coordinator   

n.协调人

参考例句：

• The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, headed by the Emergency Relief Coordinator, coordinates all UN emergency relief. 联合国人道主义事务协调厅在紧急救济协调员领导下，负责协调联合国的所有紧急救济工作。
• How am I supposed to find the client-relations coordinator? 我怎么才能找到客户关系协调员的办公室？

9 azure   

adj.天蓝色的，蔚蓝色的

参考例句：

• His eyes are azure.他的眼睛是天蓝色的。
• The sun shone out of a clear azure sky.清朗蔚蓝的天空中阳光明媚。

10 proliferate   

vi.激增，(迅速)繁殖，增生

参考例句：

• We must not proliferate nuclear arms.我们决不能扩散核武器。
• Rabbits proliferate when they have plenty of food.兔子有充足的食物就会繁衍得很快。

11 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

13 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。