Donating an opportunity to ‘care for other babies’

The only human milk bank on the island of Ireland is appealing for more mothers to donate their breast milk.

The service at the South West Acute Hospital in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh supports premature and sick babies in neonatal units throughout Ireland.

The Western Health Trust said hospitals were continuing to experience a high demand over the summer months when people are away on holiday and there is a constant turnover of donors.

Aoibh Comer donated her breastmilk to the service in 2024 and said she was “so grateful” to her baby son Tádhg for “giving her the opportunity to help care for other babies that need it”.

Ms Comer told BBC News NI she “just knew she had to do it”.

She heard about the service from a Northern Ireland Breastfeeding community group on social media.

“I was keen on donating milk from the start of my breastfeeding journey, knowing the human body could produce such goodness and I could supply milk to the wee babies that need it most,” the 25-year-old said.

“There is no substitute that completely matches breastmilk and the benefits babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) ward get from this is so beneficial for their wee growth.”

The former health care worker from Forkill in County Armagh is urging other mothers to donate.

“I would say to anyone in a position to donate, please please do it,” she said,

“The team make it so easy, they are so helpful and a friendly.

“There is such a great feeling of achievement when you fill your last bottle of milk to donate and I’m so grateful to my baby boy for giving us the opportunity.”

Human breast milk supports premature and sick babies as it helps build their immune system and their eye and brain development.

It can also prevent against diseases which can affect premature or low birth weight babies.

In particular, it can help to protect the gut from rupturing – a potentially life-threatening condition.

The service also supports mothers of twins, triplets and quadruplets who are unable to produce enough milk of their own.

Last year, the service provided more than 1,000 litres of donor breast milk to units across 27 hospitals throughout Ireland, helping 783 premature babies, of which 223 were either a twin or a triplet.

Susan Rogers, lead nurse for public health at the Western Trust, said the bank was indebted to the donor mothers who had provided breast milk to thousands of babies since the project launched in 2000.

She told BBC News NI “the service means life or death really”.

“When you speak to anyone that has both donated and received breast milk, in the first few seconds you can get a sense of the emotion surrounding it,” she said.

“The reality is for very small premature babies breast milk supports so much of their journey.

“They have an immature gut and immune system and breast milk supports all of that.

“Often without breast milk they can become even sicker so for people that have premature babies it means everything to them.”

Sarah Haugh’s daughter Emily was born at 25 weeks and started on Sarah’s breast milk straight away.

“I was soon expressing full feeds and my freezer quickly filled up,” she told BBC News NI.

The feeding lead at the hospital suggested that she donated, a process she said was “incredibly easy”.

Sarah was able to donate 58 litres over seven months.

“It has been a lovely experience and very rewarding,” she said.

The trust is appealing for interested mothers to get in touch with the Human Milk Bank team through its website.