MILK MATTERS, the Milk Bank, urgently calls on mothers to donate breastmilk to premature babies over the festive season.
Each 50ml of breast milk can feed a baby of under 1kg for 24 hours – a gift with life-saving potential.
Premature babies are in dire need of life-saving breast milk. In addition to all the nutritional and immunological benefits of breast milk, exclusive breast milk feeding can prevent the potentially fatal intestinal infections premature babies are particularly prone to.
If their own mothers are not producing enough milk, then donor breast milk from a milk bank is the safest alternative. It literally saves babies’ lives.
Milk Matters, a registered non-profit organisation, has supplied thousands of babies at 22 state and private hospitals in the Western Cape (including Paarl) with tested, pasteurised donor milk when the mother’s own milk is not yet sufficient.
During the festive season, as with the blood transfusion services, their regular donors are not always available.
Milk Matters appeals to mothers to donate breast milk and help ensure that premature babies at risk get the breast milk they need this festive season.
Contact Milk Matters on 021-873-0004 or 082-895-8004 or email info@milkmatters.org to find out how you can become a milk donor. Visit www.milkmatters.org.
