Milk of human kindness

A human milk bank is desperately seeking donors to keep its stock of breast milk high enough to meet demand, writes SHEILA WAYMAN

IRELAND’S ONLY human milk bank is “desperately” looking for more donors as it tries to meet the growing demand for life- saving breastmilk for premature babies in maternity hospitals’ neonatal units.

Two of the seven freezers at the Western Trust Milk Bank in Irvinestown, Co Fermanagh, are switched off as there is no milk to put in them.

“The milk is flying in and flying out,” says the bank’s manger, Ann McCrea. “We have no stores of back-up milk at all, which is very worrying when we have the season of bad roads coming and Christmas – when the rate of premature births tends to rise as mums are stressed – so we are desperately, desperately hunting donors.”

Expressed breastmilk is vital in the care of premature babies; it is easily digested and protects against infection. When these babies’ own mothers are unable to provide it, donor milk is used.

The Co Fermanagh milk bank was started in 2000 when a premature baby in the Erne Hospital’s neo-natal unit developed necrotising enterocolitis – an infection of the gut commonly known as NEC – and they could not get any breastmilk for it.

“The mother was at her wits’ end; she was pumping and pumping and the more stressed she got, the less milk she produced,” says McCrea, who is a lactation consultant. They rang UK milk banks but none of them had any to spare.

That experience prompted a team to set up a milk bank and it was not long before it was getting calls from other neonatal units on both sides of the Border looking for milk. More stringent requirements for donated milk used in the Republic means the Border looms large in the operation of the bank. The risk of CJD is the main issue.

In the Republic, people who lived in Britain between 1980 and 1996 are not allowed to give blood, and the bank applies the same criteria to milk donations for the South. Mothers who have had IVF are not acceptable either, but in the North there is no problem with that.

As a result, lists of donors are colour-coded according to where the bank can send their milk – green for those in the Republic and white for the North. While the Republic’s hospitals can use milk only from women living in the Republic, the North’s hospitals can use milk from both sides of the Border.

By its nature, milk donation is usually a short-term exercise. So far this year, the bank has had donations from 144 women, including Colette Ahern who is breastfeeding her fourth baby at home in Co Limerick.

She first heard about the milk bank on RTÉ's Nationwideafter the birth of her second child five years ago. "I thought that's an idea – I have loads of milk." She called the bank and underwent a screening test, which involves giving a medical history and a blood sample. Then polystyrene boxes containing 200ml (7oz) pre-sterile bottles, labelled with her details, arrived for her to fill and the expressing began.

Normally women are asked to accumulate about three litres of milk in their home freezer before arranging to transport it to the bank in the specially designed boxes. Ahern is delighted to be able to donate milk. “I often ask myself what is my purpose in life. If I can supply milk to premature babies, that’s enough for me.” She does not find it any hassle, usually expressing in the morning when she has a good supply of milk and the baby does not drink it all.

She intends to continue expressing, for both her baby and the bank, when she returns to her job with the HSE. It is tough combining it with work, she says, “but it really is rewarding.” The milk helps around 700 babies a year and one of those this summer was Donal Ryan, who was born on July 22, weighing just 680g (one and a half pounds). After needing surgery at four days old, he developed NEC and was critically ill in the neonatal unit at the Rotunda hospital in Dublin.

“I was told when he was sick that breastmilk could be the difference between him surviving and not surviving,” says his mother Patricia, who had to travel up and down to see Donal from their home in Wexford, where she also had a 10-year-old boy.

She “tried everything in the book” to express milk for Donal but could only produce enough for about four days out of seven, so donor milk supplemented the supply. He is thriving now, weighs 3.64 kg (eight pounds) and went home to his family six weeks ago.

Anybody interested in donating milk can contact the Western Trust Milk Bank on 048-(or 028 from the North)6862-8333