Ayelet Oreg

Bar Ilan University | BIU · School of Social Work

This is a study of bereaved mothers' donation of human milk to nonprofit human milk banks following their baby's death. Whereas much has been written about the biological and medical aspects of milk donations in times of loss, much less attention has been given to the psychosocial aspects of this phenomenon. I build on research of motivations for p...

Objective This article draws on the literature of bodily gifting, the motivations for milk donation, and donor identity to explore human milk donation in the context of nonprofit milk banks. We ask: What are the characteristics of the milk donor identity? Methods We qualitatively analyze written testimonials and images produced by human milk donor...

Perinatal loss is a major life crisis involving multiple losses, including the loss of future hopes and dreams, of being pregnant, and of self-esteem, to name a few. In the present study I focus on mothers who experienced perinatal loss and chose to extract and donate their human milk to nonprofit milk banks. Through an analysis of 88 women’s perso...

Every so often, among the bags of breast milk sent for donation to milk banks, clear bags of milk are found that are hand decorated and accompanied by short texts written by donating mothers. In the bank labs, the milk is poured into pasteurisation containers, and the bags are thrown away. The milk comes to the neonatal ward packed in bar-coded bot...

Background:Evidence is lacking on the phenomenon of peer-to-peer human milk-sharing in the Middle East, specifically, in Israel. Research Aims:This study aimed to uncover peer-to-peer human milk-sharing in Israel, learn about how and whether donors engage in safe milk handling and storage practices, and assess knowledge about human milk and breastf...

Most of the research on human milk donations after prenatal loss has focused on donations to milk banks in which donors and recipients are anonymous to each other. In contrast, in this Israel-based study, we focus on an ongoing, direct interaction between a bereaved donor and recipients who adopted a new baby. We conducted a relational autoethnogra...

The Jewish ultra-Orthodox community enforces strict rules concerning its members’ way of life and demands that their identities be consistent with that of this conservative community. However, such congruence does not exist for ultra-Orthodox women who identify as lesbians. Drawing on social representation theory, this study examines the unique fam...

Given the multitude of outlets to which individuals can give their time and money, why do Americans donate to international causes? This research ties into larger discussions about the changes in the aid architecture and the role of private aid in particular. The contributions of the article are twofold. First, we seek to better understand how cert...

Ethnographies involve the exploration of social phenomena in the field, typically for an extended period of time. Traditionally, ethnographers listen to, observe, and directly communicate with the subjects of their research. At its essence, ethnography is about storytelling, and the data are collected through human interaction. With the development...

In this research note, we call attention to human milk donation being essentially omitted from the philanthropy literature and bodily gifting research. We focus here on human milk donations for infant feeding through nonprofit milk banks. We argue that its omission is due to two main factors: (a) the incoherence of defining human milk donation and...

Taking a culturally sensitive approach, we set out to explore the social response to, and the cultural adoption of, charity sport events in Israel, where this phenomenon is relatively new and understudied. We show that charity sport events participation is accepted with mixed feelings: participants are motivated by their novice athletic aspirations...

This research examines engagement in diaspora philanthropy through the lens of Lost Boys of Sudan and their founding of small international nonprofit service organizations based in the United States. We seek to understand refugees’ motivations to take upon themselves leadership roles in their local United States communities and in the provision of...

We examine a phenomenon which includes people who have had transformative experiences while abroad and traveling, and who have returned home to the United States and become philanthropic entrepreneurs: they start their own international nonprofit organizations. We set out to examine the motivations for giving to international causes through these n...