World Breastfeeding Week: MP's First Human Milk Bank Dries Up; Shut Since March

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The state's first and the city's only Human Milk Bank is shut for the past four months as the machine that pasteurises the milk is not working.

The Bank was shifted from the District JP Hospital to KN Katju Hospital at TT Nagar in March this year as a part of the decision to move the maternal and child care unit of JP Hospital to Katju Hospital.

The Milk Bank was established at JP Hospital in 2019. It was the first Human Milk Bank in the state. In 2022, the state's second Bank was set up in Indore.

Human Milk Banks, technically known as Comprehensive Lactation Management Centres (CLMC), collect milk from lactating mothers, process and store it after pasteurisation and dispenses it to babies who are not biologically related to the donors. It serves a crucial purpose - providing mother's milk to infants whose mothers are no more or are unable to breastfeed their babies due to other reasons like not producing milk or producing it in insufficient quantities. The milk donated by lactating mothers is pasteurised to ensure that it does not cause any infection in the recipients.

When the Milk Bank was functional at JP Hospital, four to five litres of milk was donated by lactating mothers every month. 'It was enough to meet the daily needs of 20 newborns,' said CLMC manager Ritu Sharma.

She said that the machine used for pasteurising milk was not working due to absence electricity connection and other technical issues. However, the Lactating Mother Unit (LMU) at the hospital is functional. The LMU allows babies who donít have access to their mothers to be fed their own motherís milk. Pumps are used to draw breast milk from mothers, which is then fed to their babies. This ensures that babies who are admitted to Special Newborn Care Unit are not deprived of the nutrition that motherís milk provides.

"Will start soon"

We have all the necessary equipment. However, shifting always causes some problems. We are working on them. The Bank will start functioning soon. --- Col (retired) PK Singh, superintendent, KN Katju Hospital