First breast milk bank opens soon in Oklahoma

With a nickname like liquid gold, you know it's expensive. Breast milk goes for about $10 an ounce at a plant one state over. Now, the pasteurized milk will soon be available from Oklahoma.

Until now, breast milk has been donated by Oklahoma women and sent off somewhere else to be pasteurized.

Ten percent of the milk from the Texas plant came from Oklahoma.

Keri Hale, Director of the Oklahoma Mother's Milk Bank, says, "The milk was having to be transported to north Texas to be able to be screened, tested and processed and then delivered back to Oklahoma."

Hale says there was no guarantee the milk would return to our state to help our sick babies.

For two years the board for the Oklahoma Mother's Milk Bank has been working on building their own place to store donated milk.

Nationwide, the demand for breast milk has spiked.

Hale tells KRMG, "So as we get our up and running we expect a lot more moms wanting to volunteer and wanting to donate knowing that the milk is going to stay in Oklahoma."