Mother of twins, Maria Mogodi, is grateful she is able to breastfeed both her babies. (Photo: supplied)
Several women who have given birth at Mankweng Hospital, outside Polokwane in Limpopo, have praised the work of breastmilk banks to ensure that babies who do not get breastmilk from their mothers can at least benefit from the much-needed nutrition in the form of milk donated by other women.
During a visit by Health-e News to the breastmilk bank at the hospital last week, three mothers, including one who is also a nursing sister at the hospital, spoke out about the importance of breastfeeding.
Thuagai Mphofu (21), originally from Zimbabwe, whose baby girl will be a month old on 16 August, said: “Breastmilk contains all the nutrients that help balance a baby’s temperature at a mid-level. Breastfeeding also establishes a strong bond between the mother and child. I would love to donate my own breastmilk to other babies.”
Thuagai Mpofu is more than happy to donate her breastmilk to other babies. (Photo: Montsho Matlala)
Provides adequate hydration
Maria Mogodi, of Ga-Molepo Village, who lodges at the hospital with her twins, said breastmilk also provides adequate hydration for newborn babies.
“With breastmilk, I am satisfied that my little girl and boy will not suffer from dehydration. Breastmilk also helps them fight infections. I would have loved to donate my breastmilk to the bank here, but I was advised it won’t be possible for me because I have two mouths to feed.
To those women who donate, I really encourage them to keep it up, because their good deeds help babies who for some reasons have no access to breastmilk from their mothers.”
Sheila Mokone, who resides in Moremadi Park, has been a nurse for 12 years at the hospital and regularly donates her own breastmilk.
Maria Mogodi has two babies to breast feed. (Photo: Montsho Matlala)
Too sick to breastfeed
“I decided to share my breastmilk with other babies, because some have no one to breastfeed them because their mothers have passed on. On the other hand, some babies have mothers, but they are often too sick to breastfeed. That is why I find it necessary to step in,” said Mokone.
According to milk handler at the bank Tshidi Letsoalo, mothers who donate their breastmilk to the milk bank are carefully screened and the milk undergoes pasteurisation. It also goes through a laboratory and is subjected to microbiological processes.
“The support from donor mothers is good. Last month, six women donated a total of 1 600ml. It is also possible for babies to get breastmilk even if the mother is suffering from COVID-19. We have means to pump the milk from the mothers to babies,” said Letsoalo.
Health-e News earlier reported how the province’s two breastmilk banks at Mankweng and Philadelphia hospitals have not been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and that mothers should continue donating. – Health-e News
Unless otherwise noted, you can republish our articles for free under a Creative Commons license. Here’s what you need to know:
You have to credit Health-e News. In the byline, we prefer “Author Name, Publication.” At the top of the text of your story, include a line that reads: “This story was originally published by Health-e News.” You must link the word “Health-e News” to the original URL of the story.
You must include all of the links from our story, including our newsletter sign up link.
If you use canonical metadata, please use the Health-e News URL. For more information about canonical metadata, click here.
You can’t edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week”)
You have no rights to sell, license, syndicate, or otherwise represent yourself as the authorized owner of our material to any third parties. This means that you cannot actively publish or submit our work for syndication to third party platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. Health-e News understands that publishers cannot fully control when certain third parties automatically summarise or crawl content from publishers’ own sites.
You can’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually.
The clinic was established following discussions between the Orange Farm United Taxi Association and the City of Johannesburg following concerns of HIV and TB among taxi drivers.
We use cookies to optimize our website and our service.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
