Faced with a significant lack of breast milk for premature babies in Île-de-France, a call for donations has just been launched with young lactating mothers in the region.
- SOS Préma and the Île-de-France lactarium are launching an urgent call for breast milk donation for premature newborns.
- The donation of breast milk is an anonymous and voluntary approach. All young mothers can participate “whatever the age of lactation”.
- Taking certain drugs such as certain infections or addictions (alcohol, drugs …) prevent becoming a donor.
Breast milk is home to many vital nutrients and antibodies that protect babies. True “medicine”it is truly essential for the most fragile infants such as prematurity. Of the “Milk banks” allow hospitalized toddlers to have them if they cannot benefit from that of their mother.
But the Île-de-France lactarium which is attached to the Necker hospital faces a difficult situation. He does not have enough maternal milks to meet demand. With the SOS Préma association, he has just launched a call for solidarity.
Breastfeeding: how to give milk?
“Faced with a significant lack of breast milk for prematurers, we use all young mothers available to give their milk. A simple, but essential gesture to save lives”explains the press release.
The donation of breast milk is an anonymous and voluntary approach. All breastfeeding women can participate “Whatever the age of lactation”. However, there are certain conditions which do not allow us to be donors such as having certain viral infections (hepatitis B or C, HIV), having had a transfusion or an organ transplant. Certain drugs, tobacco, alcohol and drugs also prevent participation in the collection.
To give your milk, you have to Contact the lactarium. It provides the equipment necessary to collect milk in the best conditions: electric breast pump, cold decontamination pads, bottle and thermometer.
Afterwards, “The mother collects her surplus of milk every day, freezes him and gives him to the lactarium teams who pass to recover them every three weeks at her home“, Specifies the center.
The breast milk collected by the center teams is pasteurized and controlled while respecting “A good practice guide”. Bacteriological, virological controls (serological examinations vis-à-vis HIV, HCV viruses, HCV, etc.) and detection of fraud (search for cow’s milk proteins) are carried out.
Donation of breast milk: for what babies?
Anonymous donations of breast milk made with the Île-de-France lactarium are distributed to the various neonatalogy services in the region. They are given on medical prescription:
- prematurity whose weight is less than 1500 g and born at a term less than 32/34 weeks;
- to infants presenting certain digestive pathologies (laparoschisis, ommphalocele, ecun);
- to babies with heart disease with risk of mesenteric ischemia.
L’Association of Lactariums of France Recalls that breast milk supports the development of the digestive tract (maternal milk growth factors) and the defense of the organism against infections in prematureates. “It thus helps to prevent certain specific and potentially serious complications linked to prematurity (infections, ulcero-negrosing enterocolitis, retinopathy),” she adds.
In Île-de-France, 3,000 premature people per year need women’s milk. But they are not the only ones. This is why 19 lactariums that can collect donations are dispersed throughout the territory.
