The Newberg Graphic Online

Give the gift of milk to Haitian babies

Disaster relief effort — Providence Newberg Medical Center’s milk bank is accepting breast milk donations for shipment to Haiti to help infants

• By: Amanda Newman  
• Published: 2/2/2010 2:08:52 PM

   Their milk could save a baby’s life.
   As organizations from around the world rush resources and aid to the earthquake-torn island nation of Haiti, nursing mothers have a unique way to help: by donating their breast milk.
   Numerous milk banking associations jointly sent out an urgent call for human milk donations for Haiti orphans last week, and Newberg moms are responding.
   “When the disaster in Haiti happened, we started getting calls from moms wanting to know if they could donate,” said Lesley Mondeaux, a lactation nurse with Providence Newberg Medical Center’s milk bank.
   At first, that wasn’t a possibility. The milk has to be refrigerated and land conditions were not secure in the aftermath of the disaster. But milk banking associations put out the call and collection began as UNICEF assessed the situation.
   On Jan. 27, a shipment of 500 ounces of frozen human milk left an Ohio milk bank, bound for the USNS Comfort, a Navy hospital ship stationed outside Haiti. The Comfort is currently set up with a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and medical personnel to provide urgent care to earthquake victims. Pediatric neonatologist Dr. Erika Beard-Irvine is on board the ship, coordinating distribution of the milk to infants in need.
   For some of those infants, even one feeding of human milk could mean the difference between life and death.
   “Breast milk can help with their immune system, help them to grow and help them get the nutrition they need,” Mondeaux said. Human milk donations are often sent to the scene of disasters within the country, such as Hurricane Katrina.
   Although formula is available to the infants, the water supply following a disaster is not reliably safe, which could compromise the formula, and “the babies are very vulnerable,” Mondeaux explained. Most of the babies on the Comfort were in an NICU in Haiti at the time of the earthquake or were injured in the disaster.
   Mondeaux said she has two donations scheduled for this week from women responding to the Haiti situation. One is a repeat donor; the other will be giving for the first time.
Mondeaux said the pool of donors seems to be expanding following the Haiti disaster: “We have had a lot more calls of just people inquiring how to donate.”
   PNMC, the site of Oregon’s first breast milk depot, packages the milk and sends it to the Mothers’ Milk Bank at Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center in Denver, where it is tested and pasteurized. The Denver bank will then distribute the milk. Some will go to Haiti for premature infants or those recently delivered on board the Comfort, while some will stay in the United States for sick and premature infants.
  Mondeaux said that while donors cannot specifically peg their gift for use in Haiti, “chances are, some of your milk would end up going to Haiti.”
   When infrastructure on land in Haiti has improved, additional milk supplies will be needed to send to older infants.
   Mondeaux said PNMC hopes to “spark a little interest in donating, (to meet) a real important need.”
   To donate, call the PNMC Breastfeeding Clinic at 503-537-1400.

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