Breast milk donation: an altruistic act.
Breast milk donation is an altruistic act that is vital for the health and well-being of the most vulnerable babies.
On February 10th, the breast milk bank of the José Ramón López Tabrane Obstetric and Gynecological Hospital in Matanzas celebrated one year of service. Dr. Isabel Castro Socorro, head of this room, commented on the main challenges faced by the facility.
«One of the bank’s fundamental challenges is that it does not have enough donated milk, in other words, enough donors to cover its work one hundred percent. There are times when there are more births, fewer births, we do not always have enough. So for this we work together, both gynecologists and nurses, neonatologists, to identify the potential donor mother, to encourage her to donate, to convince her of the importance of this milk she is going to donate, how many lives she is going to save, how much she can contribute to the reduction of infant mortality.»
The professionals who work at the human milk bank provide training to new mothers on how to handle the newborn, the physiological changes that the mother will face, how to manually express and preserve her milk, as well as checking their capacity to produce this important food for the babies.
The purpose of the facility is kept alive thanks to the mothers’ donations. Dr. Castro Socorro referred to the requirements that donors must meet.
«She can have controlled pathologies and use medications that do not contraindicate breastfeeding and they can be donors, but this mother must be clinically well, she has to have complementary that are negative. She also cannot have been transfused in a period of about six months. From the point of view of her breasts, they must not be damaged, because sometimes due to poor management of breastfeeding, they are damaged».
Breast milk donation is an altruistic act that is vital for the health and well-being of the most vulnerable babies.
Written by Melissa Guerra.
