Banking on 'liquid gold': How breast milk banks are saving infant lives

FHI360 is an initiative, supported by grassroots and international partnerships, providing healthcare to Internally Displaced Peoples in four locations. The nourishment of pregnant and lactating mothers, as well as their children, is a main focus. The group disseminates information and provides nutrition counseling in both one-on-one and community support group settings. They also offer vitamins and micronutrient supplements to women and children and create safe breastfeeding spaces and safe spaces for women who have been victims of gender-based violence.

Child mortality is a global problem that can be reduced by increasing breastfeeding rates; however, many mothers are either under too much cultural pressure, need to work, or cannot lactate enough milk. Brazil has devised an education program to help mothers breastfeed and has also created milk banks, through which mothers can donate excess milk to mothers who cannot produce. Additionally, Brazil offers paid maternity leave for mothers who have time to breastfeed and provide better health for their bodies as well as their new babies.

Haiti suffered tremendous losses after the 2010 earthquake, exacerbating the devastation in an already impoverished country. In 2015, agriculture in Haiti is a growing business backed by the United States’ Feed the Future Initiative. Nourishment and health of mothers and babies has also improved with the encouragement of breastfeeding and sweet potatoes.

mDoc's Garden in a Box initiative distributes biodegradable seed kits to pregnant women identified through nutritional screening as having critical dietary gaps. The women are enrolled through a structured coaching and referral system in primary healthcare facilities and community outreach points, and receive ongoing support via a digital health platform. More than 300 women have been referred to the initiative and 96% collected a seed box.

Operated by The Neo Child Initiative, the ReachOut Project provides nutrional counseling and screening to parents and their children in underserved communities, free of charge. Since 2015, the ReachOut Project has supported 20,000 people across 10 communities in the state.

The Save the Child Initiative, in collaboration with the Society for Women Development and Empowerment in Nigeria, is working to ensure that expectant mothers receive proper nutrition during pregnancy so they can deliver healthy babies. The initiative provides iron and folic acid supplements, nutrition counseling, hosts antenatal clinics, and even travels door-to-door to provide education and care to those in need.

The Milk Bank Nigeria provides donor breast milk for sick, low birth weight and premature babies in neonatal ICUs across the country to reduce mortality in preterm babies. The Milk Bank Nigeria launched in August 2022 and as of Decemeber the organization had registered four donors who had supplied 33 liters of breast milk.

The human milk bank at St. Francis Hospital opened in 2021 and is the first of its kind in the country. About eight mothers donate breast milk to the bank each day, which is then used to provide the necessary nutrients for the health and development of pre-term babies and those fighting illnesses.

To address community malnutrition, 22 mothers began a savings and credit cooperative, which has since grown to 59 members. An elected committee looks for the most nutritionally vulnerable members, who are eligible for a small interest-free loan to improve the nutrition of their families. The women pay a membership fee and when loans are repaid, the cooperative gets a small percentage of the profits, which can be paid in installments until the whole amount is repaid. The group’s savings has also helped them buy animals that provide nutritious food products and organic fertilizers for their crops.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated hunger and malnutrition of vulnerable children by crippling livelihoods and orphaning children. Two communities have responded by donating land solely devoted to growing crops to tackle hunger and malnutrition in orphans and vulnerable children. Aside from giving crops directly to families to feed children, the volunteers who work the land also sell part of each harvest to raise money for other nutritious food for the children. Part of the crops are also used to make a nutrition powder that helps ensure children are receiving the nutrients they need.