Michigan families in need of breast milk for their babies can now turn to Henry Ford Health’s new human donor milk bank in Jackson.

After delivering its first batch of donor milk to the Henry Ford Jackson Hospital on Friday, the Henry Ford Milk Bank is officially open, hoping to respond to a critical shortage of breast milk for the state’s most vulnerable newborns.

It will first provide donor milk to inpatient infants at the health system’s Jackson hospital, then expand to its other Michigan locations. In addition to babies who are in neonatal intensive care units, the breast milk will also be given to hospitalized babies whose mothers are unable to breastfeed at that moment.

“Having our own milk bank improves our ability to promote the health and well-being of vulnerable infants in Henry Ford hospitals and our communities in a new and exciting capacity,” said Henry Ford Health CEO Bob Riney in a news release.

Henry Ford Health, which previously used human donor milk from the Bronson Mothers’ Milk Bank in Kalamazoo and banks in Indiana, will first prioritize providing donated milk to inpatient infants.

Once donor volumes are sufficiently high, milk will be made available to outpatients with a prescription.

The Detroit-based health system has been working to open the bank since 2019, when it received a $20,000 grant from the Jackson Community Foundation.

Meghan Solano, a nurse and lactation consultant at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, told Bridge Michigan Thursday that anyone with extra breast milk should consider donating.

“We like to say ‘human milk for human babies,’” Solano said. “The easier it is for us to be able to donate excess breast milk, the better, so that the babies who need it can get it.”

Breast milk is especially important for premature babies and infants in the first year of life. A mother’s milk provides the optimal proportion of nutrients for the baby’s growth and development.

“The milk from a mom who has a premature baby will be different than the milk of a mom of a full-term baby, because that mom's body knows that the baby needs a different amount of fats and carbohydrates and proteins and other ingredients that are in breast milk,” Solano said.

Donor milk is important for families who are unable to breastfeed their infants, especially those with very low birth weights who are at increased risk of disease and health issues.

A CDC report found that 13% of at-risk infants in U.S. neonatal intensive care units lacked access to donor milk in 2020. According to the release, Jackson and Jackson County consistently report high infant mortality rates above the state average.

For most babies, pasteurized human donor milk is the second best option after the mother’s own milk, Solano says, as breast milk provides special nutrients that formula milk lacks.

Milk banks saw an uptick in demand amid last year’s nationwide formula shortage.

Solano was one of ten initial donors to participate in the bank’s accreditation process, which involved a thorough screening of each donor’s health and medical history and pooling a test batch of milk from multiple donors.

“I had been through the process before with the Bronson donor milk bank,” Solano said. “The process was the same and very easy. It's wonderful to know that my excess breast milk is going to help the sickest of babies in the neonatal intensive care unit at [Henry Ford] Jackson Hospital.”

All potential donors are screened and tested. Milk can either be dropped off on site or shipped frozen with assistance from staffers.

After being collected, the breast milk is screened, pooled, pasteurized — heated to high temperatures to kill harmful bacteria — and stored on site.

According to the Human Milk Banking Association of North America, which provides accreditations to nonprofit human donor milk banks, its 31 member banks in the United States and Canada provided nearly 10 million ounces of milk last year.

Solano says donating is a great option for lactating mothers with extra breast milk to help families in their community while freeing up freezer space.

“It is a pretty easy process, and it's very similar to donating blood. It's just as helpful, if not more helpful, because the donor pool is much smaller.”