Breast Milk Jewelry

‘People Want Jewelry With Meaning’: How Breast Milk Became a Gem

Alma Partida knew her breastfeeding journey was coming to a close in July. She had nursed her daughter, Alessa, for nearly 18 months — longer than most mothers in the United States do — and the process had not been easy.

First there was Alessa’s birth, by emergency cesarean section, in February 2020. In the hospital after surgery, Partida struggled to breastfeed. Once she and her daughter were discharged, nursing was still challenging.

“It was a really long journey,” said Partida, a 29-year-old speech language pathologist in Watsonville, California.

Now that it was ending, she wanted to find a way to mark it.

While scrolling through posts on a parenting Facebook group, Partida came across an unusual but fitting keepsake: a pendant containing a white stone. The main ingredient? Breast milk.

She knew she had to have one.

This may be the first time you’re hearing of breast milk jewelry, a niche of the commemorative market. But there’s plenty of precedent for trinkets and wearable items containing organic matter. Earrings and brooches fashioned from human hair were popular during the Victorian era. More recently, synthetic diamonds have been manufactured from cremation ashes. It’s common, too, for parents to save umbilical cords and baby teeth.

For her own piece, Partida shipped about 10 milliliters of breast milk to a company called Keepsakes by Grace. About a month later, she received a milky-white heart-shaped pendant in the mail...

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