Text The work of breastfeeding is a temporary thing that eventually wears off as the child grows up Often there is a backlog of milk when the child is weaned A breast that has been trained by the pump first has to be weaned again and that is not possible

The work of breastfeeding is a temporary thing that eventually wears off as the child grows up. Often there is a backlog of milk when the child is weaned. A breast that has been trained by the pump first has to be weaned again, and that is not possible without a pump. It is emptied in ever greater intervals until at some point there is no more milk. Yes, and the leftover milk that is then no longer fed to the child is sometimes donated to milk banks in hospitals if it meets certain requirements, or it is simply disposed of. Under the hashtag #pumpingmom, you can often see overflowing freezers full of women's milk on Instagram. When I started breastfeeding and I still had too little milk, these pictures triggered me: there was just so much milk that could have been shared. It occurred to me that there could be some kind of agglomeration, like a milk lake of the many shareholders. Unfortunately, milk does not legally fall under the category of assisted reproduction. Sperm donation, surrogacy and egg donation are recognised modes of this reproduction as labour. Why not milk as well, as in the days of the wage mothers? There are a multitude of platforms where women offer their milk for sale, for babies or for athletes — all illegal. Via the BBC, I came across a case from 2017 in Cambodia: women were pumping their milk twice a day in so-called milk factories (labs) for a low wage, which was then sold for eight times the final consumer price in the USA. Demand continues to be high, and although the practice stopped after these unlawful circumstances came to light, the milk was once again banned from sale as a commodity. The uncanniness of strangers’ milk plays a significant role in the reflections on a collective practice. Accepting milk from strangers, not using one’s own milk, requires some overcoming. I felt this way, for example, when I borrowed the pump from a friend, including her surplus milk. Somehow I was disgusted by the milk. The carton is still in my freezer. But then why use animal products? Cow’s milk, according to this logic, would also be something disgusting, or rather, something abject.