Got milk? Alicia Richman does, and she’s got more than enough to share . The 28-year-old Texas mother began pumping breastmilk shortly after her son, Drake, was born in 2011. In less than a year, she had produced enough milk to satisfy her growing son, and pump over 10,000 ounces extra.
Richman told Fox News that when her son Drake was born 19 months ago, she had no idea she’d “literally become a milk maid.”
“It was pretty much right out of the gate. I had plenty,” she said.
Richman said she would nurse her son until he was replete, then pump. And pump, and pump. She says she “didn’t do anything special.” She just happened to be in an elite group of women who can produce a lot of milk.
“The funniest part would be you’d have two containers, I would always have to have more on the side and be yelling across the bed at my husband, ‘Bring me another.’ Trying to unhook, I felt like I had milk everywhere,” she said.
She pumped constantly, keeping up her supply. Richman jokes that she pumped everywhere, “at home, at work, in the car and on vacation.”
“I joked I was a dairy cow. That’s how I felt,” she said.
Once she’d filled three freezers with pumped milk, she decided that she had more than enough to share. Richman contacted the Mothers’ Milk Bank of North Texas, an nonprofit that collects breast milk donations for critically ill and premature infants in need. Her donations have helped babies across the country, feeding “hundreds, and more likely, thousands of premature babies,” states executive director Amy Vickers.
“I’m so thankful that I’m able to help not only my own baby, Drake, but all of the little babies who need it and are sick,” Richman says. “It really feels amazing and I’m so thankful that I’m able to do it.”
Alicia Richman now holds the Guinness World Record for “Most Breastmilk Donated.” Richman says she went for the title to raise awareness for breast milk donation.
Between June 2011 and March 2012, Richman donated 11,115 ounces of pumped milk to charity. That’s enough milk to fill 87 one gallon jugs.
