Human milk bank at South Western Acute Hospital in urgent need of life saving donations

The Western Trust has issued an urgent appeal for mums to come forward and provide life saving breast milk donations.

Currently, the only milk bank on the island of Ireland is located at the South West Acute Hospital in Enniskillen but recently stocks of breast milk are running especially low.

The appeal comes at a time of year when neonatal units typically require additional stocks of breast milk to provide essential care to sick babies.

Fiadh Mullan was born six weeks premature and her mother Cathy says donor milk saved Fiadh's life.

She said: "When I've time to reflect I would say it was quite frightening at the time.

"For me it was life or death- I was so so grateful for the milk that I received

"It was the best opportunity to give her the best start in life."

In 2022 the bank at the the South West Acute Hospital received 1,140 litres of donor breast milk and this helped 1,004 premature babies. 279 of those were either a twin or a triplet.

Elizabeth Bailie, Human Milk Bank Co-Ordinator said: "We are indebted to our donor mums who have continued to provide essential donor breast milk for babies in neonatal and surgical units in hospitals throughout Ireland. 

"The Human Milk Bank staff are working very hard to ensure this vital service remains available to all our vulnerable premature and surgical babies, particularly at the start of a New Year. "

"We know as from previous years this can be a time when neonatal units require additional stocks of donor expressed breast milk.”

Clare Sizeland, a donor mum from Enniskillen encouraged any mum to donate.

She said: "I thought it would be going to waste anyway. Let's do it for a little while and see what happens and now we've donated 15 litres so far.

" If you are able to breast feed or whether you're pumping and expressing your milk it's so easy.

"When your baby goes to bed at night and you do one more pump before you go to bed yourself, that's a little baby's milk for the day

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