The HVN Milk Bank celebrates the VI National Meeting of Human Milk Banks

The Virgen de las Nieves University Hospital has hosted the sixth National Meeting of Human Milk Banks in which a hundred professionals from different fields have participated, such as midwives, assistants, nurses, neonatologists, pediatricians, laboratory technicians, pharmacists, immunologists and hematologists , from different cities in Spain that have made an update on the most important points of the operation of these Banks. Likewise, new techniques aimed at improving the quality and safety of the milk processed in these facilities have been discussed. 

The celebration took place on April 10 in the Assembly Hall of the Virgen de las Nieves University Hospital, organized by the Milk Bank of this hospital, FIBAO and the Biosanitary Research Institute of Granada.

Milk bank

A milk bank is a specialized center, responsible for the promotion and support of breastfeeding, and for the collection, processing, quality control and dispensing of donated mother's milk to any child who needs it.

The Human Milk Bank of the Granada hospital has been running since 2010, in this time some 400 newborns have benefited from more than a thousand liters of milk donated by 250 women. Thanks to the generosity of these donors, the Bank's activity has been able to consolidate in this period and thus improve the quality of care for newborns admitted to the Neonatology Unit of this health center.

The purpose of this bank, the first in Andalusia, is to provide breast milk for neonates, mainly premature infants, admitted to the Neonatology Unit, and whose mothers, for various reasons, cannot provide it, especially in the first days after birth.

The team of professionals that makes it up is responsible for ensuring that both the extraction, processing and storage of donor mothers' milk is carried out safely with the highest quality guarantees. Breast milk is a biological product and both in its processing and in its conservation, as with blood donation, it requires handling that guarantees its safety and the preservation of its nutritional and immunological properties.

In this way, donated milk, after being pasteurized, its composition is analyzed and with the appropriate microbiological controls that guarantee its quality and safety, it is ready to be used, under medical criteria, in premature children or those who have undergone surgery or any another pathology that benefits in its evolution from breast milk.

Donation and dispensing of human milk are free. It is a generous and altruistic gesture by women who, in addition to successfully breastfeeding their child, make the effort to express milk to donate it to other children who may need it and who for some reason do not have that of their own mother.

In addition, in an interest to favor donations and also to respond to the needs of other centers, the launch of two new donor service points has recently been concluded in the Jaén and Almería Hospitals that join the existing in Malaga and Motril, where women can deliver milk that will then be transferred to the Banco de Leche in Granada for processing.

To this end, donated milk collection systems have been set up at different points, offering the donor the material and information necessary to express milk at home. This milk is frozen by the donor and transported to the bank within a maximum period of 15 days.

Spanish Association of Milk Banks

The Spanish Association of Milk Banks, was created in 2008, the seven Human Milk Banks that currently exist in our country belong to it, among its objectives is to promote all activities related to obtaining, conservation, handling and distribution of human milk for its administration among patients who may need it, mainly sick and premature neonates. Also, dedicate efforts in all activities that promote breastfeeding in our society.

Currently there are milk banks in the Balearic Islands, Catalonia, Aragon, Extremadura, Valencia, Madrid and in Granada.