• The World Health Organisation and UNICEF support donor mothers’ milk as the first alternative where mother’s milk is not available.
• Breast milk is a perfectly balanced source of nutrition. It is a living substance, more complex than blood, and it contains a variety of nutrient and immunological factors that cannot be replicated.
• The most recent UNICEF statistics show that there is a 50% increase in the onset of juvenile diabetes in children that are artificially fed.
• Artificially fed children also displayed on average, 8-12 IQ points less than children who were breast fed, highlighting the important role breast milk plays in neurological development. 8-12 IQ points less will effect your child’s life potential.
• Australia is one of a few nations that do not have a donor human milk service.
• In 1999-2000, Brazil had a network of some 150 human milk banks that delivered 215,000 litres of human milk to 300,000 preterm and low birth weight infants. By 2006, Brazil’s national network of milk banks had expanded to approximately 300, Pasteurised donor milk is used around the world for infants with failure to thrive, Cardiac patients, Infants with malabsorption and short gut syndromes, infants with renal failure, Infants with inborn errors of metabolism, Paediatric burn patients, feeding intolerance, treatment of infectious diseases (diarrhoea, infantile botulism, sepsis) premature infants and Necrotising Enterocolitis (NEC)
• Preterm infants at the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth who receive mother’s milk have their recovery period shortened by approximately two weeks. The estimated cost saving for one preterm infant who is given mothers’ milk versus artificial substitutes is $18,200. In Queensland alone, 4300 preterm and 4000 term babies required donor milk during 2004.

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