Cottage Hospital Hosts Breast Milk Drive

Cottage Hospital held its first-ever milk drive on Friday, asking nursing mothers to donate their breast milk to babies in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

When a baby is born premature, mothers sometimes cannot produce enough milk for the newborn. This can cause come serious problems.

“The babies get necrotizing enterocolitis, and that’s a disease of the bowel and colon which can cause long-term sickness, or it can also cause death,” said Jennifer Ferrick, NICU clinical manager at Cottage Hospital.

Mothers’ Milk Bank in San Jose has been providing breast milk for 41 years. The nonprofit currently services 104 hospitals in 13 states, but the bank has been experiencing shortage of available milk.

In 2014, the bank provided donor milk to 11 infants under 32 weeks’ gestation weighing less than 1,800 grams. The infants are on donor milk from 2 weeks to 3 months.

“It goes through a tremendous amount of testing,” said Pauline Sakamoto, executive director of Mothers’ Milk Bank. “The moms are tested by their blood sample for viral diseases, and then the milk is pasteurized and then tested for bacteria. We’ve had really outstanding results. We have had 41 years of distributing milk and no illness.”

Mothers who are not able to attend a milk drive can ship milk to the bank free of charge.

For more information visit:

www.mothersmilk.org or call 877-375-6645