Amrutha Dhare, the first state-run human breast milk bank set up at Vani Vilas Hospital in Bengaluru, is giving many newborns a fresh lease of life.

“More than 1,500 infants have benefited from the donated milk available at Amrutha Dhare since its inception,” said Dr Savitha C, medical superintendent of the hospital. The beneficiaries include babies who have low birth weight or are premature, and those whose mothers cannot breastfeed.
“The prematurity and low-birth weight cases comprise almost 30% of the deliveries at our hospital,” said Dr Savitha. The milk bank has also been a life saver for babies who were abandoned at the neonatal ICU at the hospital.
The milk bank was inaugurated on March 8, 2022. “Since then, we’ve collected 250 litres of breast milk,” said Dr Savitha. “Our in-house donors are 700 in number. These are mothers who have excess milk. There are some outside donors too. In July, we got three donations from outside. We’ve had donors from places like Kolar.”
“We do pretesting, pasteurisation and post-testing for microbiological infections, and then the milk is frozen. The milk will be supplied to the NICU based on demand,” she said, adding that everything is free of cost.

Times of India Aug 5th 2023