Celebrating World Breastfeeding Week

For preterm babies, many mothers are unable to provide the necessary volume of milk due to medical reasons. The Rogers Hixon Ontario Human Milk Bank collects extra breast milk from lactating women who have been screened and approved, pasteurizes it, and distributes it by prescription to medically fragile babies in Neonatal Intensive Care Units across Ontario.

Donating breastmilk can help save a preterm baby’s life by dramatically reducing the rate of a life threatening medical complication. Studies have shown that rates of necrotizing enterocolitis (a severe bowel condition that preterm babies are prone to), were reduced by 5.4% when they were given donor milk.