By Josephine Agbonkhese 

As the Nigeria joins the global community to observe the annual World Breastfeeding Week, ace lactation consultancy firm, The Milk Booster Limited, has launched the first ever breast milk bank in the country, Milk Bank Nigeria.

Designed to cater primarily to the nutritional needs of preterm babies, the milk bank cited in Lagos, will, according to the Founder/CEO, The Milk Booster Limited, Dr Chinenye Obinwanne-Ezewike, also serve all other babies fighting a chance at life, for free but at a service fee.

Speaking at the launch in Lagos, last Friday, Obinwanne said the initiative was necessitated by the constant requests made to her organisation for breast milk for premature babies.

“For instance, a mum recently had triplets and she died; and they needed breast milk for the babies. It is so sad that whenever I get this kind of request, we end up not getting the breast milk for the baby and we hear that they die.

“This just ends up increasing Nigeria’s already high neonatal mortality rate. Already, the country has the third highest premature baby rate in the world and a lot of these babies die because there is no breast milk to sustain them,” she said.

The breast milk, she disclosed, will be donated by volunteer nursing mothers having surplus breast milk, and will be adequately pasteurised for safety.

“Already, we have a lot of mothers with surplus breast milk supply within our community. The plan is that we are going to be increasing awareness online by providing education, so that mothers with surplus milk understand the reason they need to volunteer and donate their breast milk,” she noted.

Explaining the safety measures adopted, she said: “After screening the mothers of communicable diseases, when we get the breast milk, we will process, pasteurise and also test it to ensure it is safe before we give out.

 “Some of the tests volunteers will be screened for include HIV, Hepatitis B and C, Syphilis and HTLV (Human T-lymphotropic Virus).

It will cost over N20,000 to screen each mother and this cost will be covered by us.”

On sustainability of the initiative, 

she disclosed that aside charging a service fee from end-users, funds are also expected from different bodies partnering the initiative, so that it benefits more babies across the country.