Cape Town - Born at 28 weeks, little Patrick McLeod of Southfield weighed just over 1kg.
Children born at this stage not only have immature immune systems, but during the first few weeks of life are at high risk of developing a host of infections, including the deadly necrotizing enterocolitis - a life-threatening condition in which parts of the intestine lose their blood supply and become gangrenous or die.
But luckily Patrick’s life didn’t take this distressing route. Instead, at two months, he is a bouncing and healthy baby - thanks to donor breast milk his mother, Annerleigh Bartlett received from Milk Matters - a Cape Town-based charity milk bank.
This Mowbray Maternity Hospital-based NGO provides pasteurised breast milk from human donors to hospitals for vulnerably premature babies.
Because Bartlett had given birth too early she didn’t produce enough milk to nourish her newborn baby, and for the first two weeks her baby had to depend on donor milk.
“I couldn’t breast-feed because nothing came out, at the same time I couldn’t give my son a formula milk as he was way too small.
“That’s when I first learnt about donor milk,” she recalled.
Today, not only can Bartlett breast-feed her baby, but she also donates her milk to help other mothers who don’t have enough milk.
This week is World Breastfeeding Awareness Week and Dr Lucy Linley, the head of neonatology at the hospital, said breast-feeding was not only beneficial to the baby during the first year of life, but research had shown it reduced the baby’s risk of developing other diseases.
Irene Labuschagne, a dietitian at Nutrition Information Centre Stellenbosch University, described breast milk as the best food for infants, which acted as inoculation against diseases such as diarrhoea among others.
Elizabeth Brierley from Milk Matters said although some mothers experience problems with milk supply due to early birth and stresses associated with giving birth to premature babies, it was “important that a mother spends as much time with her baby as possible to stimulate milk supply”.
Cape Argus