PUEBLO – The WIC Program of the Pueblo Health Department is opening a human milk Donation and Outreach Center on February 15th, joining the national network of Mothers’ Milk Bank.
The DOC will be the second location in Pueblo, making it a convenient place where women who are lactating can donate their excess milk.
Pueblo WIC will safely collect and transport the donations to the Arvada facility where it will be pasteurized, analyzed and distributed to babies across Colorado and the nation. Most of the babies who receive the milk are premature or fragile for other reasons and in neonatal intensive care units.
Sometimes, new mothers cannot supply any or enough milk for their infants and donor human milk helps the babies thrive.
Laraine Lockhart-Borman, director of outreach at MMB said over 90% of Colorado women’s milk donations serve premature babies in hospitals.
“We accomplish this with the help of hundreds of new donors every year. We need more milk donors to meet the demand. Many moms don’t realize how much their milk can help: it takes only one ounce of human milk to feed a micro-preemie for one day,” Lockhart-Borman said.
Women who are interested in donating can fill out the donation screening form.
