This ATM in Puducherry didn’t give you money : But, mother’s milk

Puducherry, July 19: Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (Jipmer) has established a human milk bank to nourish and save preterm babies born in the hospital. The bank, named ‘Amudham Thaippal Maiyam’ (ATM), which will also offer breastfeeding counselling to mothers, was inaugurated last Wednesday.

All healthy lactating mothers with healthy babies, who are voluntarily willing to give their extra breast milk for other babies without compromising the nutritional needs of their own baby, can donate milk.

The donors can include mothers attending baby clinics, mothers whose babies are in neonatal intensive care units, those who have lost their babies, but are willing to donate their milk, or lactating working staff in the hospital, and motivated mothers from the community.

A donor using illegal drugs, tobacco products, alcohol or HIV positive cannot donate milk.

“As 30 percent of 1,500 babies born per month in Jipmer are of low birth weight and mostly preterm, there is a strong need to establish a human breast milk bank at NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) to strengthen neonatal services and save preterm babies,” Jipmer director S C Parija said on Monday.

He said such banks must be set up in all NICU facilities considering the complications associated with formula feeding of underweight and tiny preterm babies who cannot be breastfed till they are six months old. “If mother’s milk is unavailable or insufficient, the next option is to use pasteurized donor human milk,” he said.