New breast milk bank now ready to process milk locally

Babies in local NICUs will be able to drink breast milk that was donated and pasteurized locally for the first time later this month.

A ribbon cutting for the Mothers' Milk Bank of Alabama’s new pasteurization lab was held Sept. 1. For the past two years the bank has been raising money for this equipment while sending all donated milk to Texas to be pasteurized.

The bank is housed in the Community Food Bank of Central Alabama in West Homewood, where executive director and Edgewood resident Mary Michael Kelley helped get it started. Kelley saw firsthand the importance of breast milk, often called “liquid gold,” when two of her children were in the NICU.

During the bank’s first year, more than 50 mothers have donated nearly 200 gallons of excess milk. Currently, the bank has 40 active donors in Birmingham.

After milk is donated, it must be tested and pasteurized before it is frozen and delivered to area hospitals.

Katherine Wood and Kelley will be trained and certified to pasteurize milk Sept. 14-17 by someone from the Milk Bank of North Texas and afterward they will be able to train volunteers in the process. Volunteers from the community can help with the project, and Junior League members will serve a placement to do so for this year as well.

Whitney Adams, who attended the Sept. 1 ribbon cutting, saw the importance of the local milk when her son Deacon was born in November. Her milk had not come in yet, and a nurse at Brookwood Medical Center gave her and her husband to use donor milk.

“It was so terrific that we had that option,” Adams said. “They reassured me my milk would come in too.”

And it did six days later. In the meantime, Deacon never had to drink formula, Adams said.

Adams also works as a NICU nurse at Children’s of Alabama. There they use donor milk also but from a different source and hope to soon use it from the local bank.

For more information, visit mmbal.org or call 942-8911.