Hidden Gems: Meet Alanna Oaks of MilkXchange

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alanna Oaks. Them and their team share their story with us below:

MilkXchange was founded in May 2022 by Alanna and Jayson Oaks, born of their personal experience receiving donated breast milk to support their three children. The challenges they faced in finding a donor and navigating the exchange inspired them to create a platform to facilitate the safe and secure exchange of breast milk. Prior to MilkXchange, breast milk providers and recipients needed to use social media platforms to find each other, which meant spending hours posting or scrolling to find somebody who *might* be a match. Under those circumstances, it took Alanna 5 months to find a breast milk donor, and then she was left completely on her own to figure out what questions she should ask, was this person trustworthy and how exactly would she go about getting the milk. An estimated 234 million ounces are actively available for exchange at any given time but not in an effective, accessible, or safe way — but it will be with MilkXchange. 

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The greatest part of the journey so far has been the affirmations we have received from the community, parents, and professionals alike. However, no business launches without its challenges! While MilkXchange is a Raleigh-based company and launched locally, our vision is to create a national network, which requires we have a solution for shipping the breast milk. While we can solve for the materials to ship the frozen breast milk safely, affordability continues to be a challenge. There can also be a stigma around the selling of breast milk as opposed to donating. At MilkXchange, we are a marketplace to enable education, connections, and facilitate exchange, not to shame or dictate how a breast milk provider chooses to make their milk available. Furthermore, at MilkXchange, we know exactly how much work goes into producing, pumping, and storing breast milk; it is work! Work that requires time, energy, money, and we will not contribute to the undervaluing of women’s work. If somebody would like to charge for their breast milk and create an independent source of income to support themselves and/or their family, MilkXchange is here to fully support them. 

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about MilkXchange?
We worked with dozens of parents and know that time is of the essence in their day to day. Consequently, we’ve invested our resources in developing a mobile app that easily facilitates discovery, messaging, and ultimate exchange of breast milk. Milk is also characterized to allow for personalized searching specific to your baby’s needs. MilkXchange is for donors and sellers to give purpose for their excess milk, in support of parents in need, and for parents looking for a safe and secure way to discover and match to providers who they can trust. We also heard and know from parents that it’s monumentally difficult in establishing trust between the incredibly generous milk donors/sellers and recipients. We help build that trust by providing background check and health screening services, to offer parents a peace of mind, and to build trust in the community at large. 

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
While 85% of mothers breastfeed their children at birth, only 25% exclusively breastfeed by 6 months, as recommended by American Academy of Pediatrics. We, as a collective society, are failing to provide new mothers with the support needed to breastfeed their children. Support in the form of continued care post-delivery, lactation services as a covered benefit, and paid maternity leave. What we can provide is a community and breast milk exchange. We hope to see breast milk exchange grow to support more parents, whether that includes new moms, adoptive parents, LGBTQ parents, or alternative caregivers so that turning to formula is not their first and only choice. 

Contact Info:

• Website: www.milkxchange.us
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/milkxchange/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/milkxchange 

Image Credits
Kearsten Leder