There are side hustles, and then there’s turning your own body into a small business. A growing number of mothers are doing just that: stockpiling their breast milk, selling it online, and cashing in big time.
We’re talking thousands of dollars a month, sometimes a day, all thanks to a steady flow of demand from struggling parents and gym bros with a taste for human protein.
Keira Williams, a 31-year-old NICU nurse from Atlanta, started selling her surplus milk in May and has already offloaded more than 3,500 ounces. “I’ve made $800 in just one day,” she told the New York Post. Some of it goes to moms who need help feeding their babies. The rest? Muscle dudes chugging it like a protein shake. They pay more, too, up to $2 an ounce.
That markup is part of the appeal, but so is the flexibility. Williams is using her earnings to help fund her dream wedding. Others are covering bills, buying gifts, or finally taking that vacation. Utah mom Nicole Howard has made nearly $10,000 selling her NICU-certified milk. She even launched a mobile bartending business with part of the profits.
She said it feels “like a full-time job,” between the pumping, freezing, and shipping. But as she told the outlet, “It feels so good to feed babies in need and to support myself and my household with money I’m making from my own body.”
Women Are Making Serious Cash Selling Breast Milk to Bodybuilders
It’s not all heartwarming. Some of these entrepreneurial moms are also fielding weird DMs from men who may or may not be in it for the nutrients. Williams admitted she’s wary of adult buyers who get a little too personal in their requests and called the experience a “virtual minefield.”
Still, the demand is very real. Breast milk has long been hyped for its nutrient profile—vitamins A, B12, and D, plus calcium and antibodies—and social media is full of gym influencers praising it as the “most anabolic natural supplement.” Scientists, for the record, say there’s no actual evidence that breast milk benefits adult health in any meaningful way. That hasn’t stopped people from paying Craigslist prices for it since the early pandemic days.
For sellers like Megan Lemmons in LA, this booming micro-economy is both functional and empowering. “It’s the most empowering, beautiful thing I’ve ever done in my entire life,” she said.
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