Every mother hopes for the best for her child especially in the health of the infant. As the mother feel the pains of labor and delivery comes with the worries on the health of the newborn and so it is very important to understand to store breast milk in the nursery room and endorsed to the staff for the provision of breast milk to the infant if either of the concerned is inaccessible. If a mother doesn’t produce milk a day or two prior to labor, you can ask breastmilk from a Human Milk Bank like at Zamboanga City Medical Center. Surely, you have reservations on acquiring breast milk from the Human Milk Bank for doubts since it came from another mother. The question is, “Is it really that necessary and safe for use of your child?”.
Human Milk Bank (HMB) is a health and nutrition facility that collects, screen, process and dispense breast milk donated by lactating mother with the goal of helping other mothers for reasons they cannot produce milk or inadequate production of milk such as baby being at risk of getting diseases and infection from her mother, or infants hospitalized due to very low birth weight. Services of HMB are not only accessible to sick infants but also to infant victims of calamity. It is critical to note that newborns must be initially breastfed within the first hour right after delivery to give them a healthy start in life and shall be continuously provided to infants exclusively for the first 6 months.
According to UNICEF Philippines, breast milks stored in the HMB are safe to infant’s consumption as donors were thoroughly screened for safety and reliability. During the process, qualified donating mothers were counselled and informed on the process and the purpose of donating their breast milk. The donors use manual methods or breast pumps with the assistance from the human milk bank staff. After the collection, it is stored in the freezer with labels for each container with details such as the donor’s name, date and time of collection, and the amount of breast milk collected. The collected milk is then subjected to pasteurization, pooled under a tedious process to avoid contamination while the milk is transferred to new containers undergoing a 30-minutes pasteurization process with temperature of 62.5°C. The pasteurized milk samples are sent to hospitals for microbial testing to ensure safety and quality. Storage of the pasteurized milk is at -20°C at the freezer to avoid microbial growth.
Remember that as a mother, we need to ensure the safety of our newborn and make sure that the vital drops of milk the infant is receiving is from the human breast milk regardless of whether it came from your own breast or from a Human Milk Donor. So, ensure the future of your child and patronize breast milk for its numerous health and nutrition benefits for both the mother and the baby and to the entire family.
NO II Joanna Marie E. Baltazar
Reference:
1. How a milk bank works
2. Human Milk Banks