International Preemie Day
The National Human Milk Bank of Magen David Adom (MDA), located in MDA's Blood Services building in Ramla, was established in 2018 as a joint initiative between MDA and the Ministry of Health
The milk bank collects, tests, and supplies about 160 liters of mothers' milk each month to hundreds of premature babies in NICUs across the country, maintaining the highest safety standards.
The milk bank has two types of milk. 'Preemie milk', from mothers who gave birth from week 34 until 6 weeks after delivery, intended mainly for premature babies, and the second type is mothers' milk from mothers who delivered at full term.
Since the outbreak of war, about 600 nursing women have joined hundreds of donors to the national milk bank. In the past year, the National Milk Bank has supplied approximately 4,000 liters of milk to hundreds of premature babies in various NICUs across the country and to 44 infants, including babies directly affected by security events, evacuated infants from the north and south whose mothers' milk is unavailable due to the complex circumstances, and babies of mothers called up for reserve duty while nursing.
About ten percent of all births worldwide are premature; in Israel, about 15,000 premature babies are born annually. One percent of all preemies are born at a very low weight, under one and a half kilos. According to Ministry of Health guidelines, any baby born before week 34 of pregnancy or weighing under one and a half kilos must receive milk from their mother or, in the absence of maternal production, from MDA's National Milk Bank.
"Mothers' milk has many advantages, containing numerous antibodies and immune components that protect the infant from diseases and help build the immune system, as well as active components that help with brain system and body maturation - crucial processes for premature and sick infants.
These components are missing in infant formula, therefore exposure to formula can cause severe intestinal diseases and developmental damage. The milk, like a blood unit, is human tissue containing various unique maternal active components - a composition that has no substitute and most of which survive the milk bank's processing. Therefore, donations from nursing women are important for these infants and preemies," explains Dr. Sharon Bransburg Zabary, director of MDA's National Human Milk Bank.
Meet the stand-up comedian couple from Tel Aviv, Almog Shor and Roy Zabari. Last March, when Almog was only in week 24 of her first pregnancy, her waters broke, and she was hospitalized as a result. "From the first moment my water broke at such an early week, I understood I had no control over the situation, but I made sure to remain optimistic, filled with joy, good energy, and complete faith that everything would be okay, even when there was no prediction of when I would give birth.
At the hospital, they told me it could take a day, two days, a week; some women broke records and stayed there for three months," Almog optimistically recalls about her hospitalization period.
About a month later, in week 27 of her pregnancy, Almog was told labor had begun and was rushed to the cesarean section operating room. "That day I was in the delivery room for a few hours and at some point, a surgeon came to take me for emergency C-section, and I maintained the attitude that everything would be fine; simply in my head, I couldn't imagine an option where something goes wrong."
At the end of the surgery, baby Kochav was born weighing an extremely low 990 grams. Immediately after birth, Kochav was transferred from the operating room to the NICU. "Roy and I decided we didn't want to know the baby's gender throughout the pregnancy; we wanted it to be a surprise.
We thought of a name for a boy and a name for a girl. I'm not revealing the girl's name," Almog shares about her son's special name. "Before the birth, we heard from some parents that they thought of a name, but suddenly when the child was born, they felt it wasn't the right name for them.
When Kochav was born, he was connected to many tubes, and we couldn't even hold him. I told Roy how can we give him a name when I haven't even touched him?" But the signs Almog and Roy received determined the fate of the little preemie and the name Kochav (meaning "star" in Hebrew), "While he was in the NICU, the doctors and nurses called him Kochav without knowing that's the name we had thought of. I even have a message from a doctor who wrote to me 'I'm going to visit the star.' I told myself this is the sign, this is his name."
In the first days after birth, the amount of milk Almog produced wasn't sufficient for little Kochav, so MDA's National Human Milk Bank provided the solution to supplement the desired amount for him. Since then, Almog has been nursing her son without assistance from the milk bank, and moreover, in recent months due to excess production, she has donated about 60 liters of breast milk to MDA's National Breast Milk Bank. "A month after Kochav was discharged from the hospital, I noticed I was storing lots of milk in the freezer we bought specifically for this purpose, while he was receiving fresh milk. There's no reason for the milk to sit in the freezer if it can help babies who need it just like my Kochav needed it. Since then, every time the freezer gets full, I donate the milk to the milk bank."
Almog shared the entire donation process on her social media, garnering tens of thousands of views, "I documented the donation process on my social media, and I receive quite a few inquiries from women who went and donated because of me and because I raised awareness about the issue, and it's very moving. Mothers' milk is very important for infants, especially when it comes to preemies; it's the most amazing thing they can receive when they're born."
Almog summarizes the tumultuous, complex, and especially moving period she, Roy, and little Kochav went through, "We had many moments of happiness during the period. It's in the small things like the day they took Kochav out of the incubator to an open crib. Or when a nurse told me he ate from the bottle today and not through the feeding tube. These are small things but at the time they seemed incredible. One of the happiest moments I remember most is the decision to donate my excess milk to MDA's National Human Milk Bank.
It's something I hadn't thought about before, I wasn't even sure if I would nurse, if I would pump, but I just went with the flow along the way, and the thought of how many preemies I can help is really incredible and moving."
Milk donors meet special conditions ensuring their eligibility to serve as milk donors and the safety of the pumped milk. Eligibility conditions include testing for viral infections in blood done through blood tests by MDA Blood Services and meeting additional conditions ensuring both the donor's long-term eligibility and the safety of her pumped milk, and verifying there is sufficient quantity for the donor mother's baby. Donated milk goes through a long process before reaching the needy infant, and therefore must be pumped and preserved under optimal conditions.
For more information, you can contact MDA's National Human Milk Bank via WhatsApp at 052-6344101, email milkbank@mda.org.il, phone - 073-2630200 (Sunday-Thursday between 08:00-18:00)
