20 babies can feed on human milk daily

Lokmat News Network

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar

The much-awaited Human Milk Bank was inaugurated at the neo-natal intensive care department in the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) on Monday. It is the first of its kind of bank established in the Marathwada region and around 20 newborn babies will be fed on human milk daily.

Mother’s milk is considered a boon to newborn babies. However, due to various reasons many babies cannot be breastfed. Hence, the decision was taken to establish a human milk bank at GMCH. The bank established by Rotary Club of Aurangabad West, and Rotary clubs from Canada and the US was inaugurated by the district governor Swati Herkal and president Habib Shaikh by cutting the ribbon. Acting dean Dr Prasad Deshpande, medical superintendent Dr Vijay Kalyankar, Dr Kanan Yelikar, Dr Amol Joshi, Dr Atul Londhe, Swati Smarth, Anand Asolkar, Hemant Landge, Mukund Deshpande, Suhas Vaidya, Sanjeevani Gaikwad and others were present. Dr Yelikar and Dr Joshi informed about the work procedure of the bank.

Dr Joshi said, a newborn baby needs around 300 ml of milk daily. Around 20 babies are admitted to the neo-natal department daily and they need around 6 litres of milk daily. The bank has the capacity of nine litres of milk pasteurization. The mothers are first tested and the excession milk is collected from them. The babies are fed with the milk after conducting all the tests.