Milk bank to come up at Karimnagar’s mother and child health centre

In order to provide breast milk to newborn babies, who were unable to get adequate milk from their mothers, the hospital authorities have decided to establish a Milk Bank at the MCHC.

Karimnagar: The Mother and Child Health Centre, Karimnagar, which has become a boon for poor pregnant women during their deliveries, is coming up with another facility, this time for newborn babies.

In order to provide breast milk to newborn babies, who were unable to get adequate milk from their mothers, the hospital authorities have decided to establish a Milk Bank at the MCHC. For this, hospital authorities have allocated a hall on the third floor of the three-storied hospital building. Partitions will be taken up in the hall to develop separate rooms to get milk from lactating months, distribute milk to newborns, to store milk, a staff room and others.

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A laboratory will also be developed to process and store breast milk. Trained staff of the hospital will be deployed to maintain the milk bank.

According to officials, it has been medically proven that breast milk reduces medical complications and betters the chance of baby’s survival. However, due to medical complications, premature babies some times do not have access to their own mothers’ breast milk.

Many newborns are offered powder milk if their mothers lack breast milk. Women getting excess breast milk are also facing problems. So, the hospital staff will collect breast milk from those mothers and store them after processing. The stored milk will be provided to the required newborn.

Speaking to Telangana Today, Hospital Superintendent Dr Ratnamala said they had decided to set up a milk bank to help such mothers and their babies. After the completion of work on the lab and other facilities for the milk bank, staff of the hospital would be given training in processing and storage of breast milk, she said.