Rejoice, traveling moms: this new startup will ship breast milk overnight, eliminating TSA hassles

If you're a breastfeeding mother, then you probably have at least one horror story, close call or patch of prematurely gray hair that involves – or was caused by – the TSA. For mothers who pump their breast milk, trying to get it through an airport security checkpoint can be stressful at best, infuriating at worst. And that's where a new California-based startup hopes to help.

Milk Stork is a service that allows traveling, nursing moms to ship up to 34 ounces of breast milk in one of their postage-paid "pharmaceutical grade" coolers, which will be shipped overnight to their home (or the address that they designate). That eliminates the need to worry about how to transport it through an airport security checkpoint, how to freeze it so it could be placed inside a checked suitcase or any other potential travel-related headaches.

Kate Torgersen, the working mother who founded Milk Stork, said that she came up with the idea for the overnight shipping service while she was on a business trip, frustrated when she couldn't find a viable way to ship her own milk home. In a press release, Torgerson said:

Until now, breastfeeding moms have endured business trips by increasing their pumping sessions to create extra stashes of milk; pumping and dumping while away; and supplementing with formula—not to mention lugging heavy carry-ons filled with breast milk and trying to keep it cold while in transit. By sending milk home daily, breastfeeding moms can protect their milk supply, work and travel with ease, and enjoy peace of mind knowing their babies will continue to receive the benefits of breast milk even while they're gone.

Although the service promises to be efficient, it's also expensive: one refrigerated overnight shipment costs $99. But the peace of mind alone is probably worth a few extra line items on next month's Visa statement. In the past few months, a handful of airports have attempted to accommodate breastfeeding mothers by installing Mamava nursing pods in the terminals, but the majority of domestic airports do not meet the minimum requirements that a nursing mom needs (privacy, a chair or table and electrical outlets. But regardless of what the airport terminals offer, there's still the problem of getting bottles of breastmilk through the security checkpoints in the first place.

In April, a Florida woman said she was detained and harassed at the Asheville (North Carolina) airport while TSA agents repeatedly scanned her son's bottles. That same month, actress Alyssa Milano tweeted that agents at Heathrow airport had confiscated 10 ounces of breast milk from her carry-on bag. And last April, Los Angeles mother Stacey Armato received a $75,000 settlement from the TSA after she was detained for an hour at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport after refusing to let agents X-ray her pumped breast milk.

So yeah, maybe $99 bucks doesn't seem so bad after all.