ADM SUPPORTS HEARTS MILK BANK TO PROVIDE NEEDED BREAST MILK
ADM has donated money to support Hearts Milk Bank in providing a vital service to provide breast milk to vulnerable babies.
Join us to Help Hearts Milk Bank to ensure that every tiny baby who needs it can access donor milk.
A donation of £20 could help save a premature baby’s life.
During the COVID-19 pandemic we must protect the most vulnerable amongst us – this includes babies born prematurely in our hospitals. The Human Milk Foundation work directly with NHS hospital neonatal intensive care units to provide donor human milk. Much like donated blood, donor human milk can be life-saving.
Every pound raised will make a huge difference:
- £10 pays for a milk donor onboarding pack.
- £20 feeds a premature baby for a day.
- £50 keeps our volunteers delivering milk for a week.
- £100 pays to fully recruit one milk donor – whose milk would feed on average 20 babies.
- £250 helps us to support 10 mothers struggling at home to access high quality lactation support and access to donor milk where needed.
- £500 pays for the sterile containers we need in the milk bank to hold the pasteurised donor milk for one month.
Hearts Milk Bank Story
The Hearts Milk Bank is the UK’s newest milk bank. As part of the Human Milk Foundation, they bring a new approach to the provision of milk bank services, to provide the opportunity of being fed with human milk to every baby who could benefit.
HMB offers equity of access to safe and assured supplies of donor human milk to hospitals and community-based clinicians for babies across London, East Anglia, the southeast of England and beyond.
The HMB’s vision is to support families, researchers and breastfeeding through the wider availability of screened donor milk, and work with milk banks across the UKAMB to create the gold standards of safety and efficiency.
HMB is the UK’s newest milk bank and was co-founded by Dr Natalie Shenker and Gillian Weaver. Having both worked in the NHS for many years, they aim to bring a new approach to the provision of milk bank services that can break the cycle of disinvestment and rationing.
The HMB offers equity of access to assured supplies of screened donor human milk to hospitals and community-based clinicians for babies across London, the southeast, East Anglia and beyond. As a centre of research, we are working on wide-ranging new programmes of studies into milk banking and human milk. The Hearts Milk Bank works as part of the Human Milk Foundation. Donations to our charity make sure that parents can access donor milk for their children.
Meet the Milk Bank Team
The Human Milk Foundation was conceived in 2017 by a group of parents, scientists, milk bank experts and doctors. The charity supports The Hearts Milk Bank the UK’s first independent, non-profit human milk bank, founded by Dr Natalie Shenker and Gillian Weaver. With the twin aims of providing equitable access to donor milk and initiating research, the HMB has rapidly grown to provide screened donor milk to hospital neonatal units across the southeast, London, East Anglia and beyond. Since it was founded, 659 milk donors have donated their milk – with 1486 litres going to hospitals to help tiny babies.
The HMB also provides milk to families in the community – over the first 3 years of operation we have sent over 2000 litres of milk that could not be used for hospitals to help over 100 families. No charge is made, and all milk was provided under the oversight of a healthcare professional. All babies have thrived, and in the cases where the donor milk was used to support the mother to establish her own milk supply, all the mothers successfully did! Many report that receiving donor milk made a significant positive impact on their mental health.
