Save a life, donate milk

“Not all mothers are able to produce breast milk for their newborns,” says Mande Toubkin, Netcare’s general manager emergency, trauma, transplant and corporate social investment.

According to the Save the Children’s State of the World’s Mothers 2013 report, every year as many as 7 500 babies in South Africa die the same day they are born. This means that almost every hour, a newborn baby dies.

However, if more women donated breast milk it could help to significantly increase the chance of survival for micro premature infants (weighing less than 800g or being born before 26 weeks gestation) who do not have access to their mother’s own milk.

Netcare has established breast milk banks in nine of its hospitals.

Since mid-2007 breast milk banks have gained considerable momentum within Netcare hospitals throughout South Africa and have become an intrinsic part of the group’s corporate social investment programme.

Backed by the Feed for Life initiative follows a model that encourages Public-Private Synergy for the benefit of infants in both public and private hospital care.

The initiative promotes the in-hospital harvesting of healthy donor breast milk, as this life-saving resource remains largely untapped – a concept that is feasible for both public and private healthcare facilities.

Hospitals partaking in the ‘Feed for Life’ initiative not only initiated breast milk banking, but also increased the usage of ‘mother’s-own-milk’ within neonatal ICUs.

Mothers who give birth to premature babies in private facilities are encouraged and supported so that they are able to express breast milk for their babies in intensive care.

However, premature infants require fairly small quantities of breast milk and upon their release the hospital freezers are generally overloaded with leftover breast milk.

“With the growing awareness amongst mothers with babies in private NICU more and more of them are opting to become donors,” says Toubkin.

To ensure efficient and effective use of donor breast milk as well as fair and equitable access for all infants in private and public care, the SABR Medical Advisory Board has designed strict guidelines for the use of donor breast milk in NICU.

“Within all Netcare hospitals and Stork’s Nest clinics we do not just render healthcare, but we make every effort to educate and inform. For us, safety as well as the prevention of highly infectious diseases and infant mortality is an extremely high priority,” adds Toubkin.

Although World Breastfeeding Week were held the first week of August, all women interested can still visit the N17 Hospital’s breastfeeding bank and donate breast milk, should they wish to do so.