Human milk bank to come up at Niloufer Hospital

Hyderabad: A human milk bank is coming up soon at Niloufer Hospital in the city to cater the milk to neonates whose mothers do not have milk. The human milk bank called Dhaatri Mother Milk Bank can give milk to 450 babies in the maximum capacity. However, the pregnant women who come to Niloufer Hospital for delivery have to start breastfeeding on day one (after delivery). In fact, 70 per cent of mothers in Niloufer can initiate breastfeeding on the first day. These mothers will be motivated to give the milk which is leftover or excess after feeding their own babies.

According to Dr Santosh Kumar- Executive Director for Dhaatri at Niloufer Hospital, 30 deliveries would take place at the hospital per day. We aimed to motivate 15 mothers to donate milk for those babies whose mothers don’t have milk, he said. Mothers who are delivering in corporate hospital, working mothers and house wives have come forward to donate excess milk, he said.

A mother can produce 350 ml of milk per day. If a baby needs only 200 ml to 240 ml, then she can donate the excess milk. Surprisingly, some mothers can also produce 600 ml per day.

Dr Santhosh said, we would collect the milk from mothers, who are HIV negative, Hepatitis B negative and VDRL negative. `` In the breastfeeding awareness week, we gave counselling to more than 8,000 mothers who came for Out-patient Department and In-patient Department in Niloufer Hospital. We are also joining hands with government of Telangana to create awareness on breastfeeding. Along with KCR kits, we also give the milk from the bank free of cost,” he said.

Further he said once the milk is collected from mothers, it is pasteurised (making the product safe for consumption and improving its keeping quality). After pasteurisation we freeze the milk that can use for six months. The milk bank would start by Youth for Seva an NGO at Niloufer with the support of government of Telangana, he added.

By V Naveen Kumar