Mom sets world record for most donated breast milk

Only one of her four sons actually breastfed — and he did so for only a few weeks. But that didn't stop Amelia Boomker from setting the Guinness World Record for breast milk donation.

The Illinois woman has donated 16,321 ounces of breast milk — the equivalent of 816 Venti Starbucks cups or about 241 two-liter soda bottles — to the Indiana Mother's Milk Bank over the past seven years.

That does not include the 7,000 ounces Boomker, 36, pumped after her first son was born nine years ago. That milk was shipped to a North Carolina breast milk bank.

Nor does it include the milk she fed to her own children, each of whom drank breast milk exclusively for more than a year.

"I have never really successfully breastfed, but I have produced a whole lot of milk," she said.

Milk banks rely on donated milk to help sick or premature infants whose mothers are unable to provide them with human milk. Experts believe pasteurized donor milk provides these most-vulnerable infants with a raft of benefits, including protection against disease and allergies.

Boomker, who lives in Bolingbrook, Ill., started pumping a few days after her oldest child, Danny, was born. He had a heart condition that required multiple surgeries, and doctors told her breast milk might aid in his recoveries.

Four days after his birth, he was wheeled to the operating room for the first surgery.

"I started pumping since he was not there. That was all I could do," she said.

Danny didn't have the strength to latch. Boomker's next child had a high palate and couldn't breastfeed. She had a difficult recovery from the C-section she had with her third child, and opted to pump rather than breastfeed.

Her baby Conor, now 18 months old, tried for a few weeks but then opted for the bottle.

With each child, she would pump between eight and 10 times a day, for about 20 minutes each time. In all, she'd spend about three hours a day pumping.

She'd set the alarm so she could pump every few hours throughout the night. After the first eight weeks, when she returned to work, she'd drop to eight pumps a day.

Boomker would pump more than enough to feed her sons, and she'd donate the rest.

The office where she works in corporate IT proved incredibly understanding, allowing her to take conference calls from the lactation room.

When her first child was born, the Indiana Mother's Milk Bank had not opened. It had opened by the time, Liam, now 6, was born three years later. Boomker donated through the Indiana bank from February 2008 through September 2013.

She used to ship her milk, but in the past year or so she took advantage of one of the depots, which will accept donations and then ship them to Indianapolis for processing. The bank distributes milk in Indiana and throughout the Midwest.

At the time of her youngest child's first birthday, the bank only accepted donations from mothers for up to a year post-partum. Although the bank recently changed that policy, Boomker's supply had diminished enough so that she no longer donates.

Still, she hopes her record will shine light on milk donation and bring more donors.

And the certificate she got for her efforts has certainly been nice, she said.

"I went into work and showed the people this is why I have been sitting in the pump room for all those hours," she said.

Call Star reporter Shari Rudavsky at (317) 444-6354. Follow her on Twitter: @srudavsky.