JAIPUR: It’s a bank unlike any other. It saves the lives of the smallest and the weakest when their mothers can’t. The growing demand and importance of human milk banks will see the first one in North India being opened in Mewar region this month and another in Kolkata at SSKM hospital .

Called Divya Mothers Milk Bank, the Mewar bank will be in tune with the Human Milk Banking Association of North America , says Devendra Agarwal , founder of Maa Bhagwati Vikas Santhan, the NGO supporting this initiative. Mewar’s milk bank will be the fourth functional one after Pune, Mumbai and Surat, and will be established at Panna Dhai Hospital, Udaipur.

This initiative will help Mewar region which is battling high infant mortality rates. A recent state health department survey has found that 42% of newborns in Rajasthan are undernourished and need mother’s milk. Breastfeeding and donated milk can reduce infant mortality rates by 22 %. “We intend to identify such children to provide milk to them,” said Agarwal. “Lack of mother’s milk has hindered their growth.” Milk, which is free, will be available after doctors and hospitals prescribe it. The bank can daily accommodate 60 donors and has a storage capacity of six litres.

Dr RK Agarwal, one of the founders of the bank, says, “Seeking donation is, however, a challenge and requires counseling of potential donors. Our vision is to increase the availability of mother’s milk throughout the nation.”

Milk banks are a boon for pre-term babies whose mothers don’t usually have milk for the first 2-3 days. “In such cases, human milk is better than formula or cow milk,” says Dr Jayashree Mondkar, head of neonatology at Sion Hospital, Mumbai. It also helps mothers who are ill and can’t breastfeed, those on medication, babies with life-threatening diseases and multiple births where the mothers don’t have enough milk.

The likely donors, says Agarwal, will be mothers who give birth to stillborn infants and those with surplus milk. Medical tests to exclude HIV/AIDS will first be conducted on the donors. The milk, after being expressed with suction machines, will be transferred to storage containers. Each pool (3-5 donors) of milk is thoroughly mixed. Then, six ounce glass bottles are filled with it prior to pasteurization. The pasteurized milk is frozen at -20°C and given to whoever needs it. It can last six months.

Mumbai, incidentally, has Asia’s first human milk bank at Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital. Started in 1989, it has collected more than 1,000 litres of milk and gets more than 10,000 donations annually. KEM, J J and Cama Albless hospitals, too, set up milk banks in 2005, 2006 and 2007 respectively.

In Surat, at least 500 infants have got a new lease of life, thanks to Project Yashoda, a bank started four years ago in Surat Municipal Institute of Medical Education and Research (SMIMER). The bank has milk from some 1,266 mothers. Dr Vandana Desai, medical superintendent of SMIMER , said, “We have donors even among our staff members and one of them has donated at least 50 times.”

With inputs from Pratibha Masand in Mumbai; Himansshu Bhatt in Surat, and Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey in Kolkata.