Bengaluru: Mostly sourced on a volunteer basis, breast milk banks in the city are gaining importance for being the key to neonatal care and nutrition.
The government took cognizance of the matter and opened Amritadhaare, a state-funded breast milk bank in Vani Vilas Hospital in March this year. However, a section of the medical community is raising alarm over premium rates being charged for breast milk, which is mostly procured through women volunteering to donate.
There are roughly four such banks in the city and most of them opened between 2016 and 2017, with Aadya Human Milk Bank being the latest addition in 2021. Dr Srinath Manikanti, neonatologist, heading Aadya, said awareness is essential to make breast milk available to newborns. “Mothers who are lactating in excess must know that they can donate if there is extra milk after feeding their children. They should also be aware about where to donate. This outreach should be done at every hospital,” he said.
The process everywhere begins with checking if the donor-mother has excess milk, reviewing the donor’s medical records, validating quality of collected milk, pasteurisation and finally, storage. Its validity is mostly up to six months.
From many organisations, TOI learnt the cost of procuring and preparing breast milk is less than Rs 2 per millilitre. Most public banks such as the state-funded human milk bank at Vani Vilas Hospital on KR Road provide stored milk free of cost. Even the joint initiative of Gunasheela Nursing Home and Rotary Club of Bangalore Junction, which is Aadya, provides milk for free to below-poverty-line mothers by collecting it as per requirement. But many private hospitals charge anywhere between Rs 500 and Rs 150 per 50 ml of branded milk.
Since most milk banks are operating on a not-for-profit basis, a 50ml bottle can be purchased for Rs 100 too. Doctor says about 250ml is sufficient to feed a baby for five days. Nevertheless, a patient admitted to a private hospital may be charged much higher rates as these hospitals tend to have their own rates for certain items sourced from their pharmacies.
Dr Mallesh Kariappa, head of Amritadhaare and one of the first few who worked on building such banks in Bengaluru, said: “Our facility had its first collection in October 2021, followed by pasteurisation conducted for the first time on January 13 this year. Since then we have collected 45 litres. It is provided for free at our hospital and we incurred a fixed cost of Rs 1 crore while setting up the lab and storage unit. There are recurring costs now but this is a welfare initiative.”
Some doctors raised concerns over capitalisation of this medical provision. Milk is to be collected from mothers who have not completed more than six months post delivery. However, some enterprises seek it from mothers who have 1-2 year old babies. “It is a grim situation. Sourcing milk from mothers six months after delivery affects the quality and nutritional value of the milk. We have dealt with cases where some poor women in villages were lured into selling their milk and feeding their newborns with cow milk,” a doctor stated.
Vineetha Chinappa, chairman, Public Image of Rotary Club (Dist 3190), stressed that providing mother’s milk to a newborn is not a business; it is an essential potion needed for the survival of a new life.
!(function(f, b, e, v, n, t, s) {
window.TimesApps = window.TimesApps || {};
const { TimesApps } = window;
TimesApps.loadFBEvents = function() {
(function(f, b, e, v, n, t, s) {
if (f.fbq) return;
n = f.fbq = function() {
n.callMethod ? n.callMethod(…arguments) : n.queue.push(arguments);
};
if (!f._fbq) f._fbq = n;
n.push = n;
n.loaded = !0;
n.version = ‘2.0’;
n.queue = [];
t = b.createElement(e);
t.async = !0;
t.src = v;
s = b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t, s);
})(f, b, e, v, n, t, s);
fbq(‘init’, ‘593671331875494’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
};
})(
window,
document,
‘script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’,
);if(typeof window !== ‘undefined’) {
window.TimesApps = window.TimesApps || {};
const { TimesApps } = window;
TimesApps.loadScriptsOnceAdsReady = () => {
var scripts = [‘https://static.clmbtech.com/ad/commons/js/2658/toi/colombia_v2.js’,
‘https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=AW-877820074’,
‘https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/sdkloader/ima3.js’,
‘https://tvid.in/sdk/loader.js’,
‘https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/video_comscore_api/version-3.cms’,
‘https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/grxpushnotification_js/minify-1,version-1.cms’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#version=v10.0&xfbml=true’,
‘https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/locateservice_js/minify-1,version-12.cms’
];
scripts.forEach(function(url) {
let script = document.createElement(‘script’);
script.type=”text/javascript”;
if(!false && !false && url.indexOf(‘colombia_v2’)!== -1){
script.src = url;
} else if (!false && !false && url.indexOf(‘sdkloader’)!== -1) {
script.src = url;
} else if (url.indexOf(‘colombia_v2’)== -1 && url.indexOf(‘sdkloader’)== -1){
script.src = url;
}
script.async = true;
document.body.appendChild(script);
});
}
}
.
