Breast milk jewelry

A filled tree of life breast milk pendant.
Bezel set breast milk pendants, one with a breast milk crescent, one with a star with custom colored backgrounds and names.

Breast milk jewelry is jewelry made from pumped or expressed mother's breast milk as a keepsake often worn by the mother. Breast milk keepsakes come in various jewelry types such as rings, lockets, pendants and popular European style beads. Pendants may include custom background colors, children's names and be made in many shape choices. Some pendants may be bezel set, locket set, made from only resin, or filled. Filled styles use a preserved breast milk and resin mix to fill holes or openings in jewelry pieces, usually Sterling Silver. Generally, the filled shapes are trees, leaves, or hearts representing love and life.

Various methods may be used to make the jewelry. To preserve and protect it, the piece may be covered in a clear resin or glaze. No matter the process used for preservation there seems to be a long and tedious process involved in creating the keepsakes, leading to long waits for order fulfillment. The long waits for order fulfillment have caused online speculation about the practice, even gaining media attention. [1]

The process

After the purchase of a breast milk keepsake design the consumer sends their breast milk to the creator so the process can begin. Each creator likely uses a different trade process. In some methods it's believed that solvents or chemicals are added to assist the preservation. Other methods may include dehydrating, freeze drying, cooking down, or mixing breast milk with other mediums, forming and curing take place after a period of drying and/or curing with the medium mixes. Coating, pouring, or mixing the preserved milk into resin is believed to be the final step.

References

  1. ↑ "R.I. Moms Feel Scammed Waiting For Breast Milk Jewelry". The Huffington Post.

[1] [2]

Further reading

  • Kavita Varma-White. "Mom's newest bling: breast milk jewelry". TODAY.com.
  • "Breast-Milk Jewelry: The Must-Have Mommy Memento". TIME.com.
  • "11 moms complain about Rhode Island breast milk jewelry firm". The Washingtion Times.
  • Lindsey Robertson (4 August 2015). "Mothers create jewelry with breast milk". Mashable.
  • "R.I. Moms Feel Scammed Waiting For Breast Milk Jewelry". The Huffington Post.
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