Opening of the Milk Bank for the South West of England

5 years ago I helped to set up the Precious Drops fundraising campaign to set up a Human breast milk for Bristol and the South West of England.

Milk banks used to be widespread in UK hospitals until the Aids/HIV scare in the 1980′s which led to many of them being shut down.

This is the first new milk bank for many years and will save many babies lives.

In the video I recorded at the opening Alison Leaf, Clinical Lead; Consultant Neonatologist, Southhampton Hospital (preiously Southmead)  talks about David Baum, Alison Baum’s uncle.

Alison’s charity Best Beginnings is doing amazing work to raise awareness of what we need to do to give babies the best beginning possible.

The WHO code on infant feeding states that if a mother is not able to breastfeed her baby the next best thing is donated milk from a wet nurse or another mother. This means that if a mother is not able to breastfeed her baby she can request donated milk from a milk bank such as this one.

Human breast milk is very special stuff, so much so that when Elton John’s son was born, he FedEx’d it from Zachary’s mother from wherever she was in the world.

The aim of Best Beginnings is to have milk banks all around the country that provide milk to all babies who need it.  Milk will be distributed by the Blood Bank services from where it is collected, pasteurized and stored to where it is needed.  Like Blood, human breast milk is a live saving liquid and it’s been great to see the milk bank finally opened here in Bristol.

Eva