Brazil is an international reference in donation of human milk, containing a total of 225 milk banks and 217 collection points across the country.
Specially used for feeding premature babies it's from low weight admitted to neonatal beds.
Despite the entire network involved, donation volumes only meet 55% of all demand.
So to expand this stock, the Ministry of Health launched another edition of the National Campaign for Donation of human milk which started last month.
To get an idea of the importance of this work, from January to December 2021, around 168,000 liters of milk were distributed to 237,000 newborns, an increase of 7% compared to 2020.
However, about 340,000 low birth weight or premature babies are born in the country every year.
In this sense, corresponding to 12% of the total live births, for this reason, this stock needs to increase urgently.
With this current campaign on the theme "Donate breast milk and receive the gratitude of a lifetime", the goal is to expand by 5% this offer of breast milk to newborns who are hospitalized in neonatal units across the country.
About 200 milliliters of milk can feed up to ten newborns.
In Brazil, milk donations are one woman donor for every 12 women assisted, in the last 22 years more than 3.2 million babies have received donated breast milk.
Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) report that about 6 million lives are saved per year with breastfeeding up to the sixth month of life.
In this way, every woman who breastfeeds is a possible donor of breast milk.
For this, it is enough not to use any medication that may interfere with breastfeeding and present good health.
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