Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital Milk Bank

THERE HAS BEEN A MILK BANK AT QUEEN CHARLOTTE’S HOSPITAL SINCE THE 1930’s

The human milk bank at Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital is one of 17 milk banks in the UK. It undertakes the collection, screening, processing, storage and distribution of donated breastmilk in accordance with guidelines published by the United Kingdom Association for Milk Banking and endorsed by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Donors recruited from the community express and freeze surplus breastmilk at home and collection is arranged at regular intervals. Mothers of babies discharged from this and other neonatal units, who have stored breastmilk that is suitable for donation, are also recruited. All donors comply with strict health and lifestyle criteria and undergo serology tests at the time of enrolment and 3 months after the date of their final donation. In addition, donors who provide milk for more than 6 months undergo additional screening to ensure they remain free of infections. Donors are screened for antibodies to HIV, HTLV, Hepatitis B and C and Syphilis. Where a one off donation is being provided the milk is quarantined for 12 weeks and the milk not issued until after the results of the follow up blood test are known. All donor milk is heat treated at 62.5oC in specially designed human milk pasteurisation equipment. In common with UK tissue and blood donors, women who donate breastmilk to the milk bank receive no payment for their milk. However they do receive a gold (coloured!) badge bearing the "Every Drop Counts" logo.

During 2006, 71 new donors were recruited and 19 donors who had been recruited during 2005 continued to donate milk. A total of 410.7 litres of milk was pasteurised of which 359.6 litres (%) passed the bacteriology screening. A total of 292.5 litres of donor breastmilk was issued from the milk bank of which 180.9 litres (%) went to the Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital Neonatal Unit. Surplus donor milk is made available to other neonatal units and during the year this amounted to 111.6 litres. This was almost exclusively provided to other neonatal units within the North West Thames Perinatal Network. If supplies are running low, other neonatal units are not able to obtain milk but are referred to another milk bank. However supplies throughout the year remained in excess of demand.

The volume of donor milk used on the neonatal unit varied little between 2005 (179.2 litres) and 2006 (180.9 litres). Of those infants 55% received it for 1 week or less and only 4% for more than 4 weeks. Where appropriate, sufficient donor milk is sent to units receiving transferred infants to feed them for at least 3 days. The receiving unit is then able to purchase additional supplies as required.