Thinking of donating your milk? - By Joyce Asabor

Steps involved in accepting a donor into the program to dispensing a quality product (human Milk).

When a donor makes the decision to donate her breast milk, she first makes a call to the donor bank and informs them of her decision or desire to do so. The Donor bank then arranges for her to be screened. The screening process is a thorough health history as stipulated by the American Association of Blood Banks where the donor is asked detailed questions ranging from blood transfusions, organ transplants to her health habits. The reason for this is to ensure that the donor does not transmit any diseases to the recipient(s) of the donor milk and the prevention of adverse reactions to any medications that the donor may be receiving at the time of donating her milk.

The donor bank proceeds to the next stage after a donor has been screened by providing the donor with an identification number. This number is used for future reference of identification or tracking tool rather than the donor’s name as confidentiality of the individual donor has to be maintained.

Consequently, the milk bank starts to process all the donated milk by pooling them together into a large flask in order to evenly distribute the nutrients especially the fats in the milk. The pooled milk then goes through the process of being labeled and put into batches and refrigerated ready for pasteurization.

Pasteurization process is a very delicate one where the milk is carefully monitored in the Pasteurizer so it does not over heat. However before the heating of the donor milk, the milk will have to sit a while to thaw. According to Milk Bank standards the ideal temperature milk must be held in the hot water for is 62.5 degrees Celsius or 144.50 degrees Fahrenheit. This is done in order to maintain the integrity of the donated milk for the recipients. Although Experts have argued that a lower temperature is preferred, this may not destroy certain bacteria and viruses such as HIV and Herpes.

The milk remains in the heat for about 30 minutes, a process also referred to as the Holder pasteurization and then transferred quickly into chilled chamber where the bottles are and subsequently stored ready for scanning where the contents and nutritional content of each bottle are determined and calculated. The labeling process then follows shortly after.

After the labeling process some samples have to be taken for cultures to ensure the integrity of the milk as no milk will pass the test until this is done. The culture process is for 24 hours and the expected results of the culture should be at zero colony forming units (0 CFU/ml). The milk is then kept in the freezers pending the results.

The distribution immediately follows once the cultured samples come back as free of bacteria and all other undesirables. A recipient with the required prescription is then processed and the delivery of the product arrives within 24hours of receiving the order.

For more information on how to donate please contact:

Healthy Children Project, a non-profit research and education institution that was established in the year 1993. It is dedicated to improving child health final results, and has established good relationships with various public, private, and non-profit agencies.