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Jaundice develops in most newborn infants and is one of the most common reasons infants are rehospitalized after birth. American Academy of Pediatrics clinical practice guidelines strongly support the recommendation that clinicians promote and support breastfeeding. Recognizing that the disruptions associated with phototherapy interfere with breastfeeding, the challenge often faced by clinicians is how to provide effective phototherapy while supporting evidence-based practices, such as rooming-in, skin-to-skin contact, and breastfeeding. We report here on a case that reflects a common clinical scenario in newborn medicine in order to describe a technique for providing phototherapy while maintaining evidence-based practices. This approach will assist clinicians in providing best-practices and family-centered care.

Donor human milk has been used in the United States for >90 years, but recent advances in human milk science and laboratory techniques have led to increasing use of this resource. Pediatricians began using donor human milk in the 1900s in response to anecdotal observation that premature infants had better health outcomes when receiving their own mothers' milk. Since then, a formalized human milk-banking system developed in the mid-1980s and distributed >1 million ounces of pasteurized donor human milk in 2008. Despite growth in the use of pasteurized donor human milk, there is little discussion in the medical literature regarding the ethical considerations of collection and use of this resource. Key ethical considerations include issues surrounding medical decision-making and informed consent, increasing the limited supply of human milk, how ethically to allocate this scarce resource, and concerns linked to the marketing of a human milk.