On second thought, nursing mothers should not donate breast milk to Haiti. I earlier posted that some groups were calling for donations because the infrastructure for delivering it was now in place. Apparently, it isn’t. It turns out that “a bevy of United States breast-feeding advocates may have unleashed a well-meaning but misguided flood of mothers’ milk to the earthquake-shattered nation, one that aid workers in Haiti say was not requested — and is not needed,” reports msnbc.com’s JoNel Aleccia.

“Tell them not to send it,” said a spokesman for the American Red Cross.

The Human Milk Banking Association earlier issued “urgent” call for breast milk. Now, the Emergency Nutrition Network has asked the association to retract that call.

Donations of breast milk could create logistical problems in Haiti and create an “unfeasible and unsafe intervention” according to the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance in a statement.  

It appears that the Human Milk Banking Association, along with others such as the La Leche League, may have jumped the gun. Nevertheless, the Milk Banking Association’s executive director, Pauline Sakamoto, says that the group ” was just trying to fill a need,” Aleccia writes. Sakamoto also said that donated milk will not be wasted, even if it doesn’t make its way to Haitian infants.

Aleccia writes: “While representatives for aid agencies such as the American Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and World Vision said there never was a need for donated milk, some agencies said they heard from workers at orphanages in Haiti who indicated that babies were going hungry.”

No doubt. But if sending milk is going to cause more problems than it solves, it shouldn’t be sent. And as well-meaning as the groups might be, they really should check with disaster-relief officials before issuing such calls.

And: ” ‘This was very grass roots,’ said Amanda Nickerson, executive director of the International Breast Milk Project,” according to Aleccia. That’s also great. But there are reasons that the “grass roots” aren’t put in charge of disaster response.

The Human Milk Banking Association and the other groups had said that they arranged for donations to be transported to a U.S. Navy hospital ship off the coast of Haiti. But now the staff of that ship is holding the milk because of the concerns that have been raised.