Nsambya hospital to set up breast milk bank

Kampala. Mothers in Uganda with excess breast milk will be able to donate it and save lives of vulnerable babies effective next year as St Francis Hospital Nsambya in collaboration with Ministry of Health establishes a human breast milk bank.
The bank will target to save lives of especially babies born prematurely whose mothers do not immediately produce breast milk but need it as a cornerstone for their survival.
Others are babies who need breast milk to increase their survival chances; those born underweight below 1.5kg and those who lose their mothers at birth.
Some mothers also remain in critical condition after delivery and cannot breastfeed their babies.
With the new initiative, any eligible mother will be free to walk to the hospital neonatal department to donate breast milk.
Dr Victoria Nakibuuka, the head of the paediatric department at the hospital, at the weekend said they have already identified a manufacturing company where the human breast milk bank expected to cost between Shs50m and Shs80m will be procured. “It will be a specific fridge storing human breast milk such that it can stay for a very long time. The ordinary fridges cannot keep the milk for all that time,” Dr Nakibuuka explained.
She added that the bank expected to store 50-100 litres of milk will keep it safe for the baby’s consumption for more than three months.
According to Dr Nakibuuka, for a mother to become a donor she will have to undergo mandatory Hepatitis B, HIV/Aids and syphilis tests, among others.
In addition, mothers will be counselled and taken through the proper techniques of extracting breast milk.
“One can give up to 500 millilitres; depending on the person but any quantity would be acceptable. One thing about breast milk is that the quantity the baby has fed is the same quantity that will be refilled,” she added.
However, Dr Nabukenya warned that the breast milk will not be available to mothers who are just adamant to breastfeed as it is on high demand, and costly to process. It will not be on sale, she warned.
For a start, the bank will strictly supply only vulnerable babies born with in the hospital before it starts serving others elsewhere.
Currently, health workers at the hospital and other facilities improvise whenever a baby needs breast milk by looking for a donor at the ward who is subjected to different tests.
Ms Janet Hadia, a mother who has benefitted from the donated milk, said it took her a whole day to get a breast milk donor at Nsambya hospital’s neonatal ward when she had a preterm baby at 24 weeks of pregnancy as opposed to the 40 weeks of gestation period.
Ms Hadia is excited that the bank will lessen the hustle many mothers go through looking for a donor.