HYDERABAD: Telangana’s first ever human milk bank is being set up at Niloufer Hospital. As part of World Breastfeeding Week, awareness on the importance of breast milk was conducted for mothers at the hospital here on Saturday. The milk bank would be formally inaugurated by the end of August. The centre is spread across an area of 2,200 sq feet and is equipped to store mother’s milk for 600 babies at any given point. The process of pasteurisation and storage of milk has been adopted from the guidelines of the Human Milk Bank Association of North America, which has been successfully catering to millions of children in Canada and other nations.
The milk will be stored at 70 degrees celsius and can be used for six months from the time after pasteurisation. The initiative has been taken up by Dhaatri - The Mother’s Milk Bank and Youth for Seva, an NGO with the support of the Telangana government.
Pointing that a number of new-borns are often deprived of colostrum, the milk produced by mothers right after delivery, which is the most nutritious and important for growth and immunity of the child, doctors associated with Youth for Seva pushed for this initiative.