Geelong bank to store human milk

Andrew Mathieson
GEELONG is set to become a hub for human milk on tap for mums struggling to breastfeed.
Experts in animal lactation and breast-feeding machines have proposed a Geelong human milk bank and research centre.
The ambitious venture would be the second facility of its type in Australia after Perth’s Perron Rotary Express Milk Bank opened two years ago.
Deakin University Professor Kevin Nicholas and Dr Lisa Amir plan to join forces with the city’s lactation consultants and breastfeeding advocates to establish the milk bank at Geelong Hospital.
Deakin’s Waurn Ponds campus would serve as the bank’s research centre under the plan.
The project would draw on Deakin University’s medical school, which has lactation research facilities from Prof Nicholas’s work on dairy animals.
“We’re based in Geelong, so it makes good sense to develop a centre here,” Prof Nicholas said.
Geelong had the reported lowest rates of breastfeeding in the state, he said, with the amount of mothers breastfeeding exclusively for the first six months in steady decline.
Prof Nicholas said a Geelong milk bank could attract mothers from throughout Victoria and possibly interstate who were battling with breastfeeding and concerned about the affects of formula substitutes.
“Initially we will target Geelong Hospital and provide this service to the hospital but, certainly as the milk bank and the centre grows, there will be more opportunity to make milk available to other mothers and hospitals as it is needed,” Prof Nicholas said.
Dr Amir said research had found that hospitals had “informally” collected milk from mothers but the practice had diminished amid spreading concerns about HIV and hepatitis infections.
“The milk bank would again raise the profile of breastfeeding and people would think it is something important and perhaps persevere a bit longer,” she said.
Mothers would first be screened to determine whether they could be a “donor”.
Dr Amir said milk was repeatedly tested for bacteria before pasteurisation, so it was not a health risk.
“We think babies should have human milk and, if they can’t have their mother’s milk, we should be able to provide milk for them,” she said.