World Breastfeeding Week: TS human milk bank at Niloufer fed 27,000 newborns since 2017

Hyderabad: With an increasing number of women working from offices or on the field, breastfeeding newborns has become a challenge. Quite aptly, this year, the theme for World Breastfeeding Week is ‘Let’s make breastfeeding and work, work!’ The campaign focuses on promoting practices that can help working women and support workplace-related breastfeeding because most workplaces and public places lack facilities including nursing rooms that can provide the space and privacy for lactating mothers at work.

Undoubtedly, breastfeeding has several physical and psycho-social benefits and immunity-boosting breastmilk has a crucial role in the holistic development of children.

WHO, UNICEF recommendations on breastfeeding

The World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF recommend that infants should be breastfed within the first hour of birth (early initiation of breastfeeding), be exclusively breastfed (fed only breast milk) for the first six months, and mothers can continue breastfeeding for two years and beyond.

Exclusive breastfeeding has the potential to prevent 13% of under-5 deaths globally each year if all children below two years of age are optimally breastfed. Early initiation of breastfeeding within the first hour of birth and exclusive breastfeeding can reduce 22% of all newborn deaths.

As per WHO, only about 44% of infants aged zero to six months worldwide were exclusively breastfed between 2015 and 2020. The National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), 2019-2021, revealed that only about 41% of infants were breastfed within the first hour of birth in India. The survey also found that only 64% of children less than six months of age were exclusively breastfed.

Challenges faced by working women in breastfeeding

Due to the lack of privacy and nursing rooms at workplaces, long working hours, job stress causing low milk output, lack of family support etc., has led to around 50% of women opting for mixed feeding (using both breastmilk and formula feed) along with complementary food after joining work. This is happening despite the fact that the Amended Maternity Benefit Act of India (2017) has legal provisions to support lactating working women.

Elaborating on the causes behind low breastfeeding rates among working professionals, Dr Nitasha Bagga, a neonatologist at Rainbow Children’s Hospital, said “A few studies done on the subject have revealed that not even 15% of working women could continue exclusive breastfeeding till six months, while 64% of the women have actually initiated but could not continue. The challenges faced by women professionals are long working hours, commuting time, non-congenial work atmosphere like no privacy to breastfeed or express milk, lack of support at home and workplace and inadequate maternity leave. Having appropriate lactation space, breastmilk expression breaks, and organisation policies to support and promote breastfeeding can improve breastfeeding.

Milk banks to the rescue

In Telangana’s public sector, Niloufer Hospital was the first to establish a human milk bank in 2017, claimed to be the largest in India. Recently, a few more milk banks at Gandhi Hospital, ESI Hospital, and maternity hospitals in Sultan Bazaar and Petlaburz and those at Khammam and Siddipet have commenced. A few private sector hospitals for mothers and childcare in the city have also set up their milk banks attached to their respective NICUs (neonatal intensive care units).

The milk banks, which contain milk from donor mothers, who have surplus milk, come to the aid of thousands of babies, whose biological mothers are unable to produce adequate milk for various medical reasons or have expired or the baby is in NICU separated from the mother.

Elaborating on the milk bank at Niloufer Hospital, Dr Santhosh Kumar Kraleti, founder and executive director of Dhaatri Chain of Mothers’ Milk Banks, said, “Since its inception, around 3,500 litres of breast milk was received from donor mothers, which was given to around 27,000 newborns of Niloufer Hospital.”

“It is nice to see that the response is beyond our expectations, cutting across cultural barriers. Ours is the only centre in the public sector besides the one in Kolkata, which has an automated imported pasteurisation machine where human intervention is not required. On any given day, at least 50 pre-term neonates require milk from the milk bank. The milk is stored at minus 20 degree Celsius and has a shelf life of one year. They are thawed before feeding the baby,” he said.

Dr Santhosh also said that mother’s milk or human breast milk contains HMO, which is like a magic potion that protects the baby from harmful bacterial infection, whereas formula milk can cause necrotising enterocolitis or harmful bacterial infection leading to diarrhoea. “Around 99% of mothers have temporary problems in lactating due to stress or problems of latching and positioning the baby. Our staff and nurses at the milk bank counsel them and the problem gets solved,” he said

As per doctors, donor milk is the best option for infants if the biological mother’s milk is not available or cannot be fed to the baby.

“Donor’s milk is especially beneficial for premature children because the organs, including the digestive system, are not properly developed in pre-term babies. They often fail to digest high-protein cow milk or formula milk (cow milk in processed powder form) and develop lactose intolerance. Such formula milk also lacks antibodies and is not easily digestible. In such cases, milk banks come to the rescue. At the milk bank, the donors’ milk is collected, pasteurised, and checked for the presence of germs before being fed to the premature babies at the neonatal care unit,” said Dr Nitasha Bagga.