Rajasthan State have a strange bank which is the Bank of Mothers Milk which is helping to save hundreds of infants from dying. Divya Mothers Milk Bank (DMMB) in Udaipur, one of the very few such functional units in north India which help by providing the newborn mother’s milk in time. Set up in April 2013, DMMB has saved 644 infants whose biological mothers are unable to breastfeed them for a variety of reasons, including being HIV-affected or malnourished.
Besides, infants, specially girls, abandoned by parents in Rajasthan’s highly patriarchal society, are also fed here.
The milk bank is managed by NGO Maa Bhagwati Vikas Sansthan, which also runs a cradle scheme that has managed to save the lives of over 100 female infants. Rajasthan has a high infant mortality rate. According to the 2011 Census, the desert state’s infant mortality rate was – 52 per 1,000 live births as compared to the India figure of 44.
According to a report prepared by not-for-profit Save the Children and Joy Lawn, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, a staggering 1.013 million babies in India died on the first day of birth in 2012.
Agarwal, who also teaches yoga, claims the number of mothers visiting DMMB – who can’t produce milk or who have it in excess – has been increasing steadily.”Till Nov 30, 1,405 women have donated 8,389 units of milk. One unit is 30 ml,” he said.
Before pooling, the donor’s milk is tested for various diseases like HIV, hepatitis B and the like.The milk is sterilized in a hot air oven for 30 minutes and pasteurized at 65 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes.The milk is stored at temperatures below -20 degrees Celsius and does not perish for six months if kept frozen.
Added R.K. Agarwal: “Every year 2,76,00,000 births are reported in India. Imagine if half of their mothers donate milk, infant mortality can be drastically reduced.”He said a country like Brazil has over 200 human milk banks – perhaps the highest in the world.”It is because of milk banks Brazil has reduced child deaths by 70 percent. India should als follow this model,” he added.
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