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Hmmm. Well I haven't heard
anything about it and I'm in contact with many lactavists who'd love this. I
shall do some investigating! Anyone know the LC in the article?
J
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2005 6:02
PM
Subject: [ozmidwifery] Human Milk
Bank
This was on the list earlier this
year.....
Helen Cahill
Australia's first milk bank
August 12, 2004
- 1:06PM
Australia's first milk bank is to start offering breast milk
to new
mothers in Victoria from the beginning of next
year.
Melbourne-based lactation consultant Margaret Callaghan plans
to open
the private service which will pasteurise milk donations and
offer them
to mothers who cannot produce enough for their own
babies.
The proposal has raised questions about how the new service
would be
regulated.
Ms Callaghan said the private company setting
up the Victorian milk bank
planned to set up in NSW next and then to
establish clinics nationwide.
She said new mothers who wanted to
donate would be screened for disease
and would then express the milk at
home.
"It wouldn't be like a cow shed," she said.
The milk
would be pasteurised and given to premature babies whose
mothers for some
reason could not provide enough milk.
Premature babies would be
targeted initially as they were the most
likely to suffer necrotising
enterocolitis (NEC), or bowel blockages,
after being fed formula, she
said.
Mothers milk also aided neurological development and reduced
the risks
of infections, Ms Callaghan said.
Hospitals used to
provide excess milk from new mothers to babies who
needed it until the
rise of the spectre of AIDS in the 80s.
Ms Callaghan said that as the
average age of mothers increased, so had
the demand for breast
milk.
"I have people ringing me saying 'Where can I get some human
milk
from'," she said.
The president of paediatrics and child
health of the Royal Australasian
College of Physicians, Professor Don
Roberton today said any move to
make breast milk more available was
positive as long as the milk was
properly screened for
disease.
Professor Roberton said human milk had advantages over
formula,
especially for premature babies.
"But we also have to be
very aware of any potential risks that might
occur with human milk," he
said.
Breast milk would need to be carefully screened in the same way
donated
blood was, he said.
Breast milk banks operate in the UK,
the USA and parts of Europe but the
prospect of them opening in Australia
has raised the question of who is
responsible for their
regulation.
A Therapeutic Goods Administration spokesman said a
breast milk bank
would be a state rather than a federal
responsibility.
A spokesman for the Victorian Department of Human
Services said a breast
milk bank would come under the State food
act.
The operators would have to show their product was "free of
infection
and fit for human consumption" and convince the government that
they had
strict screening processes in place, he said.
-
AAP
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- Re: [ozmidwifery] Human Milk Bank Janet Fraser
-
