Vietnam Opens First Official Breast Milk Bank

Vietnam on Jan 15 launched the country’s first official human milk bank at a hospital in central coast city of Danang, using donations from women giving birth there. The project at Danang Ob-gyn and Pediatrics Hospital will collect milk under a strict procedure including selecting healthy donors and sterilizing the milk before delivery, according to officials from the health ministry. Tran Thi Hoang, deputy director of the hospital, said around 15,000 babies are born there every year but not all of their mothers can feed them with breast milk, either due to their own health condition or their baby's condition. Nguyen Duc Vinh, head of the Mothers and Children Health Department at the health ministry, said the bank is an important achievement in newborn healthcare in Vietnam. While the ministry’s Danang milk bank is its first, there have been others initiated by parents to pick up the breastfeeding rate in Vietnam. A survey in 2014 showed that the percentage of infants under six months exclusively breastfed increased from 17% to 24% from 2009. However, the breastfeeding rate in Vietnam is still low. The government has tried to change that by increasing maternity leave from four to six months and issued a ban on advertisements of formula products for children under two. (Thanh Nien Daily 15, Vietnam News Jan 15)