Donating a possibility to ‘look after different infants’

The solely human milk financial institution on the island of Ireland is interesting for extra moms to donate their breast milk.

The service on the South West Acute Hospital in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh helps untimely and sick infants in neonatal models all through Ireland.

The Western Health Trust mentioned hospitals had been persevering with to expertise a excessive demand over the summer season months when individuals are away on vacation and there’s a fixed turnover of donors.

Aoibh Comer donated her breastmilk to the service in 2024 and mentioned she was “so grateful” to her child son Tádhg for “giving her the opportunity to help care for other babies that need it”.

Ms Comer advised BBC News NI she “just knew she had to do it”.

She heard in regards to the service from a Northern Ireland Breastfeeding neighborhood group on social media.

“I was keen on donating milk from the start of my breastfeeding journey, knowing the human body could produce such goodness and I could supply milk to the wee babies that need it most,” the 25-year-old mentioned.

“There is no substitute that completely matches breastmilk and the benefits babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) ward get from this is so beneficial for their wee growth.”

The former well being care employee from Forkill in County Armagh is urging different moms to donate.

“I would say to anyone in a position to donate, please please do it,” she mentioned,

“The team make it so easy, they are so helpful and a friendly.

“There is such an awesome feeling of accomplishment while you fill your final bottle of milk to donate and I’m so grateful to my child boy for giving us the chance.”

Human breast milk supports premature and sick babies as it helps build their immune system and their eye and brain development.

It can also prevent against diseases which can affect premature or low birth weight babies.

In particular, it can help to protect the gut from rupturing – a potentially life-threatening condition.

The service also supports mothers of twins, triplets and quadruplets who are unable to produce enough milk of their own.

Last year, the service provided more than 1,000 litres of donor breast milk to units across 27 hospitals throughout Ireland, helping 783 premature babies, of which 223 were either a twin or a triplet.

Susan Rogers, lead nurse for public health at the Western Trust, said the bank was indebted to the donor mothers who had provided breast milk to thousands of babies since the project launched in 2000.

She told BBC News NI “the service means life or loss of life actually”.

“When you converse to anybody that has each donated and acquired breast milk, within the first few seconds you may get a way of the emotion surrounding it,” she mentioned.

“The actuality is for very small untimely infants breast milk helps a lot of their journey.

“They have an immature gut and immune system and breast milk supports all of that.

“Often with out breast milk they’ll turn into even sicker so for those who have untimely infants it means all the pieces to them.”

Sarah Haugh’s daughter Emily was born at 25 weeks and started on Sarah’s breast milk straight away.

“I used to be quickly expressing full feeds and my freezer shortly stuffed up,” she told BBC News NI.

The feeding lead at the hospital suggested that she donated, a process she said was “extremely simple”.

Sarah was able to donate 58 litres over seven months.

“It has been a beautiful expertise and really rewarding,” she mentioned.

The belief is interesting for moms to get in contact with the Human Milk Bank staff by means of its website.