MoH&FW is planning to open a network of human breast-milk banks pan India
‘Vatsalya – Maatri Amrit Kosh’, a National Human Milk Bank and Lactation Counselling Centre at Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC), will be the largest human milk bank and lactation counselling centre available under the public sector in North India.
Inaugurating the centre at LHMC in Delhi recently, CK Mishra, Health Secretary, envisaged that with this donor human milk bank, all newborns in and around Delhi will have access to life saving human milk regardless of the circumstances of their birth.
“Even when we know the potential of mother’s milk for a child, breast feeding rates are low in India. The early initiation of breastfeeding is only 40 per cent, even when the institutional delivery has increased to 78.9 per cent. In view of this, we launched Mothers Absolute Affection (MAA) programme to create awareness regarding breastfeeding as being the most cost-effective way of enhancing the child’s immunity,” Mishra stated.
Mishra further said that the decline in maternal and child mortality in India is much faster than the global average rate of decline and thanked the frontline workers for their dedicated work. “We are poised to enhance Universal Health Coverage in the country and are conscious of quality issues. Several efforts are underway through NHM to improve affordability, quality and access to healthcare services. This is one such initiative.”
The national human milk bank and lactation counselling centre will collect, pasteurise, test and safely store milk that has been donated by lactating mothers and make it available for infants in need. In addition, this facility will protect, promote and support breastfeeding of their own healthy mothers by providing lactation support to mothers through dedicated lactation counsellors.
Elaborating on the human milk bank facility, Sushma Nangia, Director, Professor, Head department of Neonatalogy, LHMC told Express Healthcare, “Human milk banks assume great importance in our country, as it significantly helps in the infant mortality rate, particularly the pre-term babies who are significantly under-weight. And the physiological inability of the mother in many cases to breastfeed, the human milk bank helps. In LHMC alone, we have 14,000 mothers delivering each year and per month it is 1400 deliveries and 30 to 40 deliveries per day. With the NICU having about 80 babies, the human milk bank comes as a boon to pre-term babies, as it ensures healthy and safe milk.”
Informing that Vatsalya – Maatri Amrit Kosh is more of a lactation management centre and that human milk banking will be a part of an overall breastfeeding strategy, Nangia said, “The lactating mothers who have excess milk volunteer and donate the milk. First step donors blood is tested for HIV 1 and 2 and Hepatitis B and C. Operations of storage, pasteurisation, checking contamination, and monitoring of milk are done with utmost care. The milk is pasteurised at 62.5 degree celsius for 30 minutes. This special method of pasteurisation kills potentially harmful viruses and bacteria but does not harm the majority of the milk’s immunological properties and beneficial components. The nutritional composition remains unchanged. After processing, a bacterial culture is completed to make sure that there are no harmful bacteria remaining in the milk. The milk is frozen and held at -20 degree celsius until it is requested for the use. The milk is pasteurised and re-cultured before it is dispensed. As of now, we get 60 ml to 200 ml milk from eight to 10 mothers. The milk is given on requisition basis to the nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) unit. While the infrastructure facility was taken care by the LHMC, the equipment viz, breast pumps, pasteurizer, sterliser and heater was given by The Norway- India Partnership Initiative (NIPI).”
Vatsalya – Maatri Amrit Kosh is established in collaboration with the Norwegian government, Oslo University and Norway India Partnership Initiative (NIPI).
“I am confident that this will provide guidance, inspiration and guidelines for more such milk banks for helping sick newborn babies,” said Nils Ragnar Kamsvag, Ambassador of Norway to India.
“This centre will also act as the teaching, training and demonstration site for other milk banks to be established under the MoH&FW,” Mishra added.