King’s Daughters Medical Center Awarded Milk Bank Depot

Brookhaven, MS —

Mothers’ Milk Bank of Mississippi was opened in 2010 with its’ mission being to accept, pasteurize and dispense donor human milk to premature and ill infants in Mississippi by physician prescription and according to guidelines from the Human Milk Banking Association of North America. Currently, we serve eleven neonatal intensive care units with pasteurized donor human milk that is essential to the survival of premature infants. Premature infants are oftentimes born so early that their mother’s own milk has not yet been established.

Mothers’ Milk Bank of Mississippi’s purpose is to bridge the gap between the time the baby is born and the time that their own mothers are able to produce breastmilk and is not meant to replace their mother’s own milk in any way. In the event that mothers are unable to produce permanently, donor milk will continue to be given for as long as the prescribing physician deems necessary.

With the latest addition of King’s Daughters in Brookhaven Mothers’ Milk Bank of Mississippi now provides several depot locations throughout the state of Mississippi for mothers to donate. To clarify, a depot location is a location where our already pre-screened donors are able to drop off their donation of frozen human milk within their own community. This decreases the need for much travel as the depot coordinator ships the milk directly to the home milk bank in Flowood, Mississippi for pasteurization and testing before dispensing the donor milk to neonatal intensive care units.

Potential donors are asked to first call Mothers’ Milk Bank of Mississippi at 601.939.5504 for an initial over the phone interview to see if they qualify. Donors are expected to be generally healthy and non-smokers. Once approval is received through the over the phone interview, then approval from the donor’s obstetrician and pediatrician is needed as well as having labs drawn at Mothers’ Milk Bank of Mississippi’s expense. This lab work can be done on donors within Kings Daughters Medical Center’s lab to further reduce travel time. After these steps are complete, donors are approved to drop off their donation at Kings Daughters Medical Center depot location where their frozen milk will be kept in a freezer until shipped to Flowood, Mississippi for pasteurization.

King’s Daughters Medical Center LDRP Director, Angie Williamson, RNC, BSN stated, “We at King’s Daughters Medical Center are very pleased to be recognized as the latest depot location for Mother’s Milk Bank. This goes hand-in-hand with our Baby Friendly recognition we received in February, 2019. Our commitment to our mothers and newborns is unmistakable in what we do day in and day out. Mother’s Milk Bank fills such a tremendous void for those mothers who need this service for their infants. This is just another way that KDMC is caring for our community like no one else can.”

Having this resource at Kings Daughters Medical Center will assist donors within the Brookhaven community by providing the option of less travel expense to donate. Mothers within this community with excess breastmilk now have an option of helping other ill infants whereas before this task would have required much time and travel. Not only this, but having a depot location within the community will help bring more awareness to the benefit and need of breastfeeding. Statewide, having this depot will increase donor milk supply for all neonatal intensive care units and thus will lead to healthier life outcomes for premature infants as well as reduce the mortality rate of premature infants. Mainly, donor milk reduces the risk for necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) that is oftentimes fatal to premature infants. Thankfully, Kings Daughters Medical Center is now a part of this saving process by providing Mothers’ Milk Bank of Mississippi access to more donor moms to help more babies.