Frequently Asked Questions – Donors
FAQ's - Donors
There are many reasons for a mother to be unable to meet her baby’s needs,
- Mothers who have had premature babies usually face lactation issues initially.
- A mother may be pumping for twins or triplets and not an adequate supply.
- The stress of having a hospitalized, ill infant whom she cannot hold or directly nurse can affect milk production.
- A mother may require medications that could pass into breast milk and be harmful to the infant.
- A chronic infection such as HIV or HTLV or another medical condition can preclude a mother from breastfeeding.
- A breast infection can temporarily affect a mother’s milk production.
- A mother may be in ICU due to complications of delivery while the baby is in the NICU.
Globally, India has the highest number of preterm babies born ~ 35 Lakh each year. India needs approx. 40 Lakh liters of human milk for these preterms whereas the current supplied by the milk banks only account for 60,000 litres annually ~ 1.5% of the total demand.
When you donate to Neolacta Lifesciences, your milk will undergo the best processing technology available and will be supplied to fragile babies whose very lives may depend on getting donated milk. These are children who have been born up to 16 weeks early and may weigh 500gms at birth. Because these babies are extremely fragile and will not survive without human milk, the donated milk they receive has a large impact on the rest of their lives. 10-15 ml of milk can feed a micro preemie in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for a full day. Screened and pasteurized Milk from Neolacta Lifesciences is usually the only donor milk available to these babies (informal donations are usually not an option in the NICU), and it is often in short supply.
The mothers of these tiny babies are many times ill themselves and lactation is difficult for them, or they start out with a good amount and are so stressed out with the condition of their baby that their milk supply suffers.
Human milk is very temperature sensitive and thus needs to be stored in frozen condition. Any temperature fluctuations can cause bacterial growth in the milk. Additionally, the expressed milk can get infected due to a variety of reasons viz. when a mother is already carrying an infection, not maintaining proper hygiene or the breast pumps are not sterilized etc.
Once the milk is collected from you its transported through cold chain logistics to our processing facility.
The collected milk is stored in a deep freezer room of -20 degrees until processing. It goes through a stringent pre-pasteurization testing and then pasteurized using the specialized proprietary equipment. After pasteurization, the milk goes through another level of QA testing and then are stored in deep frozen (under -18 degrees) condition.
Now the milk is ready and to be dispatched as per the requirement to all over India.
We will supply collection bottles along with storage guidelines. You can also talk to us if you need any help and we will be happy to help you.
Not at all. Once the blood test results are shared, you become a qualified donor. You can start donating whenever you’re comfortable. Please bear in mind, that we can collect milk only till your baby reaches 6 months of age.
Its mandatory to get the blood test done. These are standard screening tests which ensure that the sick babies receiving the milk have access to safe and complete nutrition.
No, you don’t have to pay for this test. We will arrange for blood sample collection and share the results with you.
Once we receive your application we will review and get in touch within 3-4 business days.
Pasteurization is a very gentle, controlled heating process using special equipment that kills viruses and bacteria while still maintaining 95% of nutrient content that was originally present in the milk.
While a few of the immune properties might be lost, there are many more that survive the pasteurization process. In addition, some beneficial enzymes are actually activated by the pasteurization process. World Health Organization(WHO), Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP), American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) technical guidelines recommend that only screened pasteurized human donor milk be given to premature and critically ill babies, if mother’s own milk is unavailable.
All of us know that nature has designed mother’s milk to best suit the needs of her baby. But there are circumstances where, mother’s own milk isn’t available and therefore donor milk is the best option for these fragile premature and sick babies.
We are the first and only Indian Human Milk Facility to be certified with ISO 22000. We process the milk in ISO-7 and ISO-8 clean rooms, which comply with FDA GMP guidelines.
Thus you can be rest assured that your invaluable donations will undergo the best proprietary processing technology before it is supplied to the sick babies.
We have the highest priority for Safety and quality and thereby screen all our applicants before accepting their milk as the recipient of the donor milk are often critically ill and/or premature babies in NICU.
You can donate excess expressed breast milk to Neolacta Lifesciences or to any milk bank.