Tiruchi Woman Donates 300 Litres of Breast Milk to Government Hospital

Rapid Summary:

• Donor Contribution: Selva Brindha, a homemaker from Kattur, donated 300 litres and 170 millilitres of breast milk to the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital (MGMGH) milk bank in Tiruchi over 22 months (April 2023 – February 2025).
• NGO Involvement: The donation was facilitated by Amirtham Foundation, an NGO that collects surplus breast milk from lactating mothers and delivers it frozen to hospitals.
• Process & Impact: The MGMGH milk bank processes donated milk to make it fit for consumption.Donated milk is used for sick or underweight babies, particularly those in neonatal intensive care units (NICU). A baby typically requires 20-40 ml of mother’s milk several times a day.
• Awareness Challenges: Dr. S. Padmapriya noted lack of awareness and familial pressure inhibits many women in Tiruchi from donating their excess breast milk despite its critical benefits for infant nutrition and immunity.

Indian opinion Analysis:

The significant donation made by Ms. Selva Brindha through Amirtham Foundation underscores the life-saving potential of breastmilk banks as support systems for vulnerable infants, especially sick and underweight newborns in NICUs. While the operation efficiency at MGMGH serves as a model example, broader societal challenges like limited awareness and cultural inhibitions surrounding breastmilk donation must be addressed to enhance donor participation across India.The low donor numbers reported highlight the need for targeted educational campaigns emphasizing both scientific evidence on breastfeeding benefits and clear guidelines about the preservation process-a major deterrent cited by potential donors. Strategic collaboration between NGOs such as Amirtham Foundation and government institutions could create scalable workflows involving community-level outreach efforts while leveraging existing infrastructure like MGMGH’s seven-year-old Milk Bank initiative.

Strengthening this framework could significantly improve neonatal health outcomes nationwide given India’s large birth rate correlating with higher likelihoods of low-weight or preterm births needing external intervention like donated human breastmilk.

Read more at: Source Link