NOURISH

In 2016, Janet Leigh created the NOURISH bracelet to bring awareness to the need for life-saving donor breast milk and to raise money for non-profit human milk banks across the country.  10% of all sales from this collection were donated to the Human Milk Banking Association of North America (HMBANA), a professional association that supports a network of non-profit milk banks throughout the United States and Canada.

The NOURISH piece was inspired by the joy and bonding Janet and her daughters experienced through nursing.  Fascinated by the incredible health benefits of breastmilk, and called to act by the Flint water crisis and subsequent donor milk shortage, Janet has since advocated for milk banking.

The primary recipients of donor milk are the sick and premature newborns in hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs).  Aside from the numerous advantages that breast milk provides to healthy newborns, premature babies in hospital NICUs benefit from it's life-saving qualities that:

- Lower the risk of necrotizing enterocolitis, the most common and most fatal gastrointestinal emergency in the NICU

- Decrease Retinopathy of Prematurity, a potentially blinding eye disease that is primarily seen in premature babies

- Lower sepsis infection rates

- Decrease length of stay in the NICU by about two weeks

- Decrease incidence of feeding intolerance and diarrhea

By supporting NOURISH, you are helping the outreach efforts of the HMBANA that ultimately result in bringing life-saving donor milk to babies who need it the most.