Blood donations, egg donations, sperm donations. We share our blood and guts, literally, with each other. It’s medically common and even commendable. So why not share breast milk?

To some, the prospect seems both practical and noble. Babies need milk, and if another woman is willing to step up and provide extra when mothers can’t breastfeed on their own, she deserves our admiration, not opprobrium. But others find the idea downright disgusting.

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“Disgusting” is what Donald Trump called attorney Elizabeth Beck when she requested a break during a 2011 deposition to pump breast milk for her infant. “He got up, his face got red, he shook his finger at me and he screamed, ‘You’re disgusting, you’re disgusting,’ and he ran out of there,” Beck said Wednesday morning on CNN.

The incident was described in a letter from Jared Beck, Elizabeth’s co-counsel and husband, obtained by CNN and first reported Tuesday by the New York Times. Trump’s attorney Allen Garten, who was present for the deposition, does not dispute that Trump called Beck “disgusting.” Trump slammed Beck’s interview in a tweet Wednesday morning to CNN Politics.

But if breast pump equals disgust for Trump, imagine what he might say about breast milk donations. While women have shared milk informally within families and communities for centuries, the Internet’s “sharing economy” is pumping new life into an ancient custom.

While women have shared milk for eons, the Internet’s “sharing economy” is pumping new life into an ancient custom.

Social media sites like Human Milk for Human Babies provide a platform for women who have excess volume to share with women who can’t breastfeed on their own.

“It feels good to be able to share. I feel very blessed to be able to do that,” milk donor mom Elizabeth Mattioli told Birmingham, Alabama, television station WIAT. “When you have small children, you can’t really serve in a church or be active in the community in big ways that other people would think are significant. But this gives you a feeling of significance and you are just doing something small.”

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Sharing not just the milk of human kindness but the milk itself may be generously motivated, yet it’s not medically recommended.

“I’m not comfortable with it. There’s no regulation, there’s cross contamination — too may risks. Not knowing the medical history of the person donating, looking at it as a nutritionist — the risks are too horrendous for your infant,” said Paulette Lambert, director of nutrition at the California Health and Longevity Institute.

In a world where moms are snatching up baby hand sanitizing gel and disinfecting wipes — in the aisle right next to the cheap baby formula — why would mothers risk infection by opting to shared milk? In part because of raised awareness of the benefits of breastfeeding. Indeed, the many benefits of breastfeeding for both mother and child include a decreased risk of childhood obesity as well as higher scores on various verbal and intelligence tests.

While the American Medical Association has recognized that breastfeeding is the optimal form of nutrition for most infants, health officials urge women to consult a physician for help in evaluating and weighing health and safety risks.

“While it’s definitely best to provide a child with breast milk over formula, if a mother is struggling with breastfeeding and is looking at milk from another woman, she doesn’t know what the other woman’s been exposed to,” says Anita Singh, MD, a gynecologist in Agoura Hills, CA.