GUWAHATI: The northeast got its first breast milk bank at the Satribari Christian Hospital in Guwahati on Wednesday. The 15th such unit in the country, the bank will be able to store human milk for up to six years.
Explaining about the need of such milk banks, Dr Devajit Kumar Sharma, paediatric and neonatal intensivist at Satribari Christian Hospital, said India witnesses a high number of cases where newborn babies are low in weight or are premature and do not get enough milk from their mothers as the latter might be sick or may not be producing enough milk. “Breast milk is the best food for newborn babies. The best option for the babies who do not get their mother’s milk is pasteurized donor milk. In our milk bank, we collect milk from donor mothers, get it pasteurized and store it in a freezer. We can store such milk to up to six years,” Sharma added.
The hospital said many mothers are already willing to donate, but lamented that lack of willingness at the government-level is the reason why such milk banks never existed before. Sharma said while mothers who are delivering babies at their hospital are going to be their prime donors, camps will be organized in the rural belts to encourage lactating mothers to come forward.
“Till today, we had only 14 milk banks in India, and none in the northeast,” Sharma said, while expressing his gratitude to Dr Debashish Das, former governor of Rotary Club district 3240 which donated Rs 10 lakh to help the institute buy the required equipment.
According to health experts, India has seen tremendous progress in newborn care in the last two decades, with the neonatal (first 28 days of life ) mortality rate decreasing from around 70 to 26%. However, this needs to be below 10% if India wants to be on par with developed countries. “Our under-five mortality is still hovering at around 60%, which is one of the worst in the world. The main cause of under-five mortality remains pneumonia and diarrhoea. If we want to achieve our goal in both neonatal and under-five mortality, we must start breastfeeding for six months within one hour of the child’s birth,” Sharma added.