Princess Royal University Hospital's breast milk bank celebrating 1,000th batch milestone (From News Shopper)

Princess Royal University Hospital's breast milk bank celebrating 1,000th batch milestone

8:22am Tuesday 16th October 2012 in News By Robert Fisk

A BREAST milk bank is celebrating the milestone of processing its one thousandth ‘batch’ since it opened in 1996.

The bank at the Princess Royal University Hospital, Farnborough, has pasteurised more than 2,000 litres of donated breast milk.

It is one of only 17 milk banks in Great Britain and also provides milk for the South London Hospital NHS Trust’s (SLHT) neonatal unit at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich.

SLHT milk bank co-ordinator Karen Lewis said: “The milk is often used when a mother has given birth prematurely.

“Many mothers immediately after birth of a premature or sick baby are not mentally ready to express milk. “We use the donor breast milk we have stored as a substitute or back up to the mother’s own milk until she is ready to start expressing.”