PREM Bank

I am so proud of my little sister, Irene. She has been donating her excess breast milk to help preterm and ill hospitalised infants. This is a picture of her and her husband, Simon and Dr. Ben and Nurse Tracy at King Edward Memorial Hospital.

Attached is a letter from Dr. Ben in recognition of Irene's effort and the donation from Irene's work Alcoa.

Dear Julie and Rod,

Please find attached a photo of myself and our milk bank Nurse (Tracey Sedgwick) receiving the Alcoa Bravo Grant cheque from Irene Chai and her husband. The PREM Bank (Australia's first donor human milk bank) provides donated breast milk to preterm and ill hospitalised infants at King Edward Memorial and Princess Margaret Hospitals. Doctors looking after extremely preterm infants encourage and support all mothers to provide their own milk to their preterm baby as we know clinical outcomes are improved and artificial formula may be associated with significant clinical complications in these babies. However, as these baby's may be born up to 3 months early (at 23-24 weeks) weighing as little as 400g some mothers struggle to provide sufficient breastmilk to meet their baby's needs (these babies will not physically able to breastfeed for up to 2-3 months so mum will be initiating and maintaining her milk supply with a breast pump). For these babies, we now offer the option of pasteurised donor human milk (PDHM) which is provided by mothers, such as Irene, who are producing more milk than their own baby requires. The screening process we subjected Irene to was consistent with that for blood donation (questionaire and blood test) and all milk is heat treated and tested before being made available - with parental consent - to patients in our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Now in our 3rd year of operation we provide donor milk 7 days per week and use 2-3 litres daily - on any day we may be feeding up to 20 babies in the NICU. Initially, a tiny 24 week old baby may only require 12mls of milk over a 24 hour period. This volume is gradually increased and we hope that supporting mothers with donor milk allows time for them to establish and increase their own supply.

We would like to thank Alcoa for providing the Bravo Grant which will enable the purchase of equipment to increase our processing capacity. More importantly, we would like to take the opportunity to thank Irene for her extremely generous donations which, over the course of her donation has helped many extremely preterm babies and their families.

Kind regards,
Ben
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Dr Ben Hartmann
PREM Bank Manager
Neonatology Clinical Care Unit
1st Floor Block A
King Edward Memorial Hospital
Bagot Rd
Subiaco 6008
Ph: 08 9340 1563
Fax: 08 9340 1266