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  Milk Bank |
Every individual has the right to the highest standard of health. While God created the ideal mother to nourish her infant by letting him or her suckle at her breast, these mothers cannot be with her nursing infant all the time. The mother-baby dyad may be split in circumstances wherein either the mother or the child is critically-ill. Breast milk is a complex fluid, rich in nutrients and non-nutritional bioactive components that can not be replicated by artificial formula so that in infants who do not have access to mother’s milk, donor milk can be life-saving. It is the best alternative feeding option for both full term and preterm infants.
Milk banking was pioneered 10 years ago in our country at the Philippine Children’s Medical Center, with the development of a local, microprocessor-controlled pasteurizer with precise temperature and timing, through the combined efforts of Dr. Gloria Baens Ramirez and the Advanced Science and Technology Institute. Pasteurization is bactericidal and virocidal resulting in microbiological safety with retention of maximum nutritional and most of the antimicrobial characteristics of human milk. |
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