In a Vancouver Island first, nursing mothers will now be able to donate their excess breast milk to help vulnerable babies in need.

The neo-natal intensive care unit at Victoria General Hospital has opened a new milk bank that could potentially save lives.

One of the babies already benefitting from B.C. Women's Hospital's provincial milk bank program, run from Vancouver, is 19-day-old Elody. The infant was born 14 weeks prematurely by emergency C-section, at a weight of just over two pounds.

Her mother, Jessica Osborn, wasn’t able to immediately provide the infant with milk – but other mothers had her covered.

“Obviously for the tiny babies, breast milk is the best thing,” Osborn said. “To have that available when you can’t give it to them yourself is pretty special.”

She said the experience has her wanting to donate her own breast milk back to the bank to help future babies in need.

Having the depot on Vancouver Island instead of having to import milk from the mainland will be a massive benefit for parents here, she said.

“Given the amount of support and volunteer work that goes on here, I imagine there’ll be a lot of milk coming this way,” Osborn said.

Baby Liam and his mother Mieko Bond also understand the importance of donors.

Born with Down syndrome, Liam has relied on milk from mothers he’s never met.

“Basically when we were first brought into the hospital and he was sick, breast milk was very important,” Bond said.

“Before we had to have it couriered from Vancouver, so there was less supply. Now we’ll have hundreds of women donating on Vancouver Island.”

Health experts say breast milk is important for newborns because it provides them with antibodies to fight off disease and infection.

Growth hormones in the milk can also help with early development.

Mothers who have been pre-screened will be able to drop off their frozen milk to Victoria General starting next week.

Donations can be dropped off at the depot in the third-floor Mother Babe Unit.

The donations are then sent to B.C. Women's Hospital in Vancouver and can be redistributed around the province.

Island Health says a typical donor is a healthy woman “who is producing more milk than she needs to feed her own baby.”