Saving Babies !

A century ago childbirth  was an event of high risk to mothers and such deaths were quite common.  The mortality rate for babies born prematurely was also high because we simply lacked the ability to care for them.  In todays Australia, survival rates for both mothers and babies achieves comparison with the top of world standards.

Unfortunately, even when the birthing process was successfully achieved some infants died young because their mothers lacked the ability to produce enough breast milk.   In that day and age the answer was a " wet nurse ".   The family would engage a young woman who was still breast feeding a child and pay her to share it to save their child.

Modern medicine has progressed to the stage that incredibly immature babies are successfully saved with the use of mini-cribs and advanced resuscitation.  Some born at just nineteen weeks gestation and weighing as little as 260 grams not only survive but grow to be healthy adults.

Todays early arrivals are immediately transferred to the maternity hospitals neonatal intensive care unit ( NICU ).   The problem is that the mother's body is not yet prepared and ready to commence milk production because of the early nature of the birth.  It seems a fact of life that natural mother's milk helps lower the risk of life threatening gastrointestinal Necrotising  enterocolitis ( NEC) compared to milk formula. NEC is the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in infants in ICU's and in 2016 thirty-six babies died of NEC in Australia.

Last weekend the NSW Health Minister opened a milk bank in Sydney that will go a long way to solving this problem.  It will be run by the Red Cross and it will seek donations from mothers with excess to supply this desperate need.    The bank would abide by international best practice and      safely collect, process, test and distribute the milk which would be pasteurised  to destroy  bacteria and viruses.  Only four of the twenty-five NICU's in Australia have a milk bank on site.

This seems to be an area of life saving appeal which is destined to grow.  Our medical system would grind to a halt without the services of the blood bank and that is run entirely on a volunteer basis.  It is comforting to know that should we have the misfortune to be involved in an accident where survival rests on a blood transfusion the blood bank stands ready to supply that need.

This milk bank requires the support of nursing women who find they are producing more than their child's need.  Exactly the same mantra applies to milk donations as to that other institution - the blood bank.   Eventually, someone in our family or a close friend is likely to have a need of that same service.