Breast milk bank at BC Women’s Hospital is ‘extremely low’

The breast milk bank at BC Women’s Hospital is extremely low on supplies and officials say it’s never been this low before.

There are only a few days worth of usable supply for the smallest, sickest patients in the province.

Frances Jones, the milk bank coordinator, said she does not know why the supply is so low. “Usually we have a slump around mid-December, but this year we started early, mid-November,” she said.

“I think it’s a number of factors. We’re certainly expanding, so we’re supplying milk to more sick and premature babies than we’ve done in the past. As well as, our donors are wonderful, generous women, but it varies hugely. Some mothers will give us 150 ounces donation and other mothers will give us thousands of ounces.”

Jones said it is also the time of year as everyone is very busy.

“The demand is greater and greater all the time.”

Most of the donated milk goes to the babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and sometimes their mothers are not able to provide the breast milk themselves. Therefore, the hospital uses pasteurized donated breast milk to help the little patients.

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WATCH: Frances Jones, the milk bank coordinator, joins Sonia Sunger to talk about the need for donations.

“It makes a huge difference to those infants, because if they don’t receive milk and we replace it with formula, they are at an increased risk for certain illnesses and particularly, devastating bowel disease,” said Jones.

If the supply of breast milk runs out, officials at BC Women’s will have to reduce the number of NICU patients they are able to help out.

Learn how you can donate to the breast milk bank.

Currently, donors can only supply breast milk until their baby is one year old, but Jones said they are looking at changing that policy.

“Right now we’re focusing on the NICUs in British Columbia because we currently, regularly service three of the Level 3s, the sickest of the babies, and there are 12 NICUs and we’re just working on an expansion program to do all the NICUs,” she said.

As most of the milk in the bank goes to the NICU babies, Jones added that milk from mothers whose babies are under a year old is best for the sick patients.