If you’re like many breastfeeding moms, you have a huge stash of breast milk in your freezer. To you it’s precious, but to companies like Prolacta Bioscience, Glycom, Medolac, and Evolve Biosystems it’s money in the bank, and they want to pay you for it.

What many moms don’t realize is that there have been non-profit breast milk donation centers around for years. Breast milk is especially important for premature babies, so most of it goes to hospitals. However, research shows that it may also hold benefits for adults, especially when it comes to gastrointestinal ailments like Crohn’s Disease.

You probably won’t get rich selling your breast milk to Prolacta or Medolac (they pay about $1/ounce according to this article), but the companies certainly are. Prolacta manufactured a fortifier product meant for extremely premature infants that costs $180 per ounce. However, babies would need $10,000 worth every few weeks, making it difficult for hospitals to purchase.

There is room for the breast milk industry to grow, but there are many concerns to address as well, such as mothers pumping too much to get paid and depriving their own children of food.

Read the full article here: Breast Milk Becomes a Commodity, With Mothers Caught Up in Debate