Healthcare staff at the Da Nang Maternity and Paediatrics Hospital is instructing a mother who wants to give breastmilk with a pumping machine (Photo: VNA) HCM City (VNA) – Vietnamese women who are unable to breast-feedtheir children for health reasons are increasingly using donated breast milkfrom other women, sparking warnings from physicians.
Somemothers cannot breast-feed their children for various reasons, including theuse of antibiotics taken after delivery.
Le HuyenTrang, a woman from Tan Binh district, has set up a free “breast milk fridge”promoted on Facebook. Donors and recipients of breast milk can post theirrequests and information.
Every day, Trang receives between 60 and 80 breast milk bags with 250ml of milkfrom donors.
However, after reading media reports about the practice, Dr Truong Huu Khanh, headof Paediatrics Hospital 1’s infectious and nervous diseases ward, said: “It’simpossible to do this. It’s not like giving free rice or bread. Frozen breastmilk from mothers should be used for their child only.”
Safety of a “breast milk bank” should be ensured, just as it is for a bloodbank, Khanh said.
“It’s not sufficient to listen to donors who say they are healthy and have nodisease. They must be tested for safety reasons,” he said.
Khanhsaid that opening and closing a fridge could also cause bacterial contamination.
At a recent press meeting, nutritionist Hoang Thi Tin of Paediatrics Hospital 1said that breast milk from other mothers should not be encouraged.
Babiescould be at a high risk of getting an infectious disease, Tin said.
Unfrozen breast milk must be used within two hours, she said, adding that milkbottles should be stored in the middle of a fridge’s freezer.
Frozen milk at minus 70 degrees Celsius could be stored for around a year, shesaid.
Tu Du Obtetrics Hospital recommends breast feeding as a preferable source ofnutrition for infants instead of formula milk.
For premature babies with a digestive disorder or born with low weight, breastmilk can be vitally important.
These newborns, however, are usually kept in a special room at hospitals awayfrom the mother and most of them are fed formula milk, which can causedigestive problems.
But doctors at Tu Du Obtetrics Hospital said breast milk could be contaminatedwith HIV, hepatitis B or C viruses. Patients with these diseases often do nothave symptoms in the early stages of the disease and, as a result, affectedmothers could pass along contaminated breast milk.
Moreover, techniques and devices for milk are sometimes not clean and storageis improper.
It isimportant to control the quality of donated breast milk by keeping it undersurveillance by health experts and sterilising it, according to the AmericanAcademy of Paediatrics.
Mothers eligible to donate breast milk are tested to detect infectiousdiseases, and they should not smoke, drink wine or take any medicine that couldaffect the quality of the milk. They are also given instructions to ensure thatthe milk is not contaminated.
Donated milk is tested twice and is sterilised at a very high temperature.
Milk that tests negative for bacteria or viruses is stored in a fridge forlater use.-VNA
VNA
