Mothers donating breast milk to premature babies

Jun 22, 2018

The overwhelming number of prematures pushed the doctor to improvise even before a proper bank is but in place. They installed this small fridge where the little milk from mothers and a few donors is stored.

A new way of saving premature babies has been embraced by St. Francis Hospital, Nsambya, located in the capital Kampala.

Mothers with more breast milk than their babies can consume are sharing it with mothers whose babies are born prematurely and are having difficulty producing breast milk themselves.



Nsambya hospital will be the first hospital in Uganda to own a breast milk bank.
Mothers walk in one by one to feed their little ones who are not only feeding from tubes but are also on life support.

Unfortunately, some of them do not have enough breast milk to feed their hungry babies. The experience of having a sick baby, medical bills, painful wounds from a C-section among other issues do not create conducive environment for formation of breast milk.

Distress and confusion is what best describes the situation in Nsambya Hospital neonatal intensive care unit. However, Dr. Vicky Nakibuuka, is hoping to turn things around. A few months back she embarked on a project to create a breast milk bank. The package will include a van which moves around the community to find mothers who can donate their breast milk from the comfort of their homes.

But the overwhelming number of prematures pushed the doctor to improvise even before a proper bank is but in place. They installed this small fridge where the little milk from mothers and a few donors is stored.

Indeed, the number of prematures who die at the hospital has significantly reduced.
Sandrah Kasasira is one of the breast milk beneficiaries. The lives of her twin boys depended on donated breast milk for the month they were in ICU. But like many mothers, convincing her to feed her babies on donated breast milk did not come easy.

Other mothers have also benefited from donated breast milk. Their hungry babies and the desire to save their lives put them in a desperate situation and agreed to the generous donations.

The twin boys who were born at 600 grams were discharged from hospital after one month, weighing 1.4kilograms. A year and a half later, the babies weigh over 11 kilograms.

Juliet Kemigisa has donated breast milk twice to mothers who desperately need it for their hospitalized babies. Juliet stresses the importance of breast milk.
But Juliet is not the only person who has donated breast milk, many more people are getting on board.

And as I was working on this story, a mother whose premature baby is in Neonatal intensive care desperately needs milk. It was my opportunity to practice what I am preaching; since I am a breastfeeding mother myself, I got a privilege to donate breast milk to Jessica's baby.

But that was only after i was tested for HIV and Hepatitis B, and found negative. These tests are compulsory for any breast milk donor. In addition, both the donor and recipient have to sign a consent form provided by the hospital.

Donor milk is given to these babies when their own mother's milk is unavailable or needs to be supplemented like when her milk is slow to come in or there's a medical reason that prevents her from breastfeeding.

But donating breast milk is also some form of therapy that helps mothers who lost their babies to deal with their loss.
Doctor Nakibuuka is raising funds to purchase a comprehensive milk bank.

A milk bank is responsible for screening donors and processing, pasteurizing, and dispensing the collected milk.
Breast milk is the ideal food for babies, with evidence showing it provides substantial benefits to health even beyond the period of breastfeeding.

Breast milk also protects high risk infants against life threatening conditions such as neonatal sepsis.
The world health organization recommends exclusive breastfeeding for babies for the first six months of life.

These super moms whose babies have just survived the intensive care unit, are now in the nursery. The mothers have to keep their babies on kangaroo, an exercise intended to give the vulnerable babies warmth. The babies who were barely a kilogram at birth have on top of other medicines, breast milk to thank for seeing another day.

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