The Impact of Maternal Diet on Donor Human Milk: EMBA Working Group Update

As a result of the IMAGINE-HMB Project and the IMPLEMENT-SoHO Project, the EMBA Working Groups were temporarily paused but these will soon become active again, starting with ‘The Impact of Maternal Diet on Donor Human Milk’.

In response to the discussions within this group, EMBA surveyed milk banks in Europe to find out what questions and practices were in place when recruiting donors.
The findings were published in 2023 in Maternal and Child Nutrition:
Vegan/vegetarian diet and human milk donation: an EMBA survey across European milk banks. The co-authors were: Serena Gandino, Agnieszka Bzikowska-Jura, Karolina Karcz, Tanya Cassidy, Aleksandra Wesolowska, Barbara Królak-Olejnik, Daniel Klotz, Sertac Arslanoglu, Jean-Charles Picaud, Clair-Yves Boquien, Enrico Bertino, Guido E. Moro, Gillian Weaver

Former members will be invited to join the next meeting and in addition new members are welcome. If you are interested in the influence of maternal diet on donor human milk, are willing to take an active part in the workings of the group and are a current member of EMBA (2026 – 2027) please contact Gillian Weaver (gillian@humanmilkfoundation.org) who is the group co-ordinator. The first meeting will take place in September 2026 prior to the EMBA Research Congress (https://www.milkbanking.eu/blog/save-the-date-5th-international-donor-milk-research-congress ).