Breast might be best for babies, but getting feeding underway can be a struggle.
Now, thanks to the country's first community breast milk bank, new mums in Canterbury can supplement their efforts with milk donated by other women.
One Canterbury mum, Jamiee Jansen van Rensburg, began donating her excess breast milk to the community milk bank after she stopped breastfeeding her fourth child.
"I always knew I had lots of milk! So yeah, I thought it's a real honour to be able to do that," Ms Jansen van Rensburg said.
Her milk has been stored at Christchurch's St George's Hospital in what is now officially the country's first community breast milk bank.
"If a mum can't produce milk herself, if she can have access to breast milk, it's gold for the baby. It's exactly what the baby needs, so it's extremely worthwhile."
The donated breast milk is first screened and pasteurised at Christchurch Hospital before being taken back to the milk bank.
"Breastmilk is full of antibodies so it develops a baby's immune system, and that's why it's such a special commodity," Rotary member and midwife Yvonne Hiskemuller said.
Currently, the only babies in the country with access to the pasteurised milk bank service are premature or sick babies at Christchurch Hospital's neo-natal unit.
The Canterbury milk bank will extend that service.
Breastfeeding advocate Carol Bartle says the service is for helping mums to continue breastfeeding by giving them a helping hand.
"If the mother is having troubles for milk supply, for whatever reason - that could be for a range of things, milk intervention or diabetes, C-section births - so if we can help them get through that barrier, then it might help them continue," Ms Bartle said.
The milk bank began after a small group of rotary members spent three years fundraising for the project.
Rotary member Liz Courtney says there have always been "underground groups of women wanting to donate milk".
"We know that from social media pages. So this now takes it into a different, more safety-orientated zone, really," Ms Courtney said.
"It makes it available to anyone who meets that criteria of help. It's not there to be a long-term thing – it's there to help them get over a hump."
St George's Hospital has provided the facility for the milk bank free of charge, but the ongoing costs will total about $30,000 a year for rotary in order to pay for equipment and the milk’s pasteurisation process.
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