The King George government Hospital (KGH) in Visakhapatnam is planning to set up an innovative ‘Mother’s milk Bank Centre’ with an aim to mitigate the infant mortality rate in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

If set up as planned, the Mother’s milk bank centre will be a first of its kind in Andhra Pradesh. According to officials from the health department, the state government has initiated this plan as part of its measures to check the infant mortality rate in the backward regions of the state. Particularly the districts of northern Andhra Pradesh like Srikakulam and Vijayanagaram are the most backward parts of the state where the incidents of infant mortality are very high.

As it is a known fact that the Mother’s milk provides immunity to the new born baby from various disease, the KGH officials have evolved this plan of setting up ‘Mother’s Milk Bank’ Centre to facilitate the new mothers who have difficulty in breast feeding the new born babies. “In the recent times, there have been growing instances where the new mothers are finding it difficult to breastfeed the newly born infants due to various lactation problems. To facilitate such mother’s the KGH officials have evolved an innovative plan to set up the ‘Mother’s Milk Bank’ Centre in Vizag. This will definitely help in reducing the deaths of infants due to lack of mother’s milk,” said Madhusudhan Babu, superintendent of KGH Hospital.

To secure the milk for the ‘Mother’s Milk bank’ Centre, the hospital authorities are planning to collect excess milk from new mothers and preserve it in the milk bank. The so preserved milk will be supplied to newborns who are deprived of breastfeeding due to various reasons.

Hospital authorities informed that the proposed bank will benefit newborns and infants of Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam districts. Not just these districts, but the people from neighboring districts of Orissa state also visit the KGH hospital for advanced quality medical treatment. “Mother’s Milk Bank will be first of its kind in Andhra Pradesh. However there are already 27 Mothers’ Milk bank centres established at various hospitals in the country. The number of banks is low in India when compared to the developed nations. The concept of mothers’ milk bank is yet to gain popularity in India though the infant mortality rate is high,” said the superintendent.

However, while allaying the apprehensions as to who will they motivate the new mothers to donate the milk the superintendent said, “We have proposed to set up the bank at KGH to raise the immunity levels of infants who are not breastfed, as part of Mother’s care initiative. We will enlighten and motivate the new mothers to donate their excess milk for the benefit of malnourished infants and save their lives. This in turn will reduce the infant mortality rate in the state,” added Mudhusudhan.