Vancouver Island team fundraising to build a breastmilk bank for babies in Ukraine
A humanitarian group from the West Shore of Vancouver Island is embarking on a new mission to create a regional breastmilk bank in the west of Ukraine.
The team has made three trips to the country since the war with Russia began. The result of those trips brought hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical and food aid to the people of Ukraine, but during the team's last trip to the war-torn country, they were taken aback by what they experienced.
In a children’s hospital in Ivano-Frankivsk, the team saw dozens of premature babies in the hospital’s neonatal unit.
“These babies are two pounds, three pounds, four pounds in weight,” said Bruce Brown, a member of the humanitarian team. “You could not really prepare yourself.”
It was a neonatal unit under immense pressure, overwhelmed by premature births.
“Born often as a result of stress-related childbirths that their mothers are having to deal with, due to the war,” said Brown.
Before the war, the hospital used to see on average four premature births per month. Since the war began, it now sees an average of 40 per month.
'The tinier the baby, the higher the risk'
“It’s really a problem,” said Oleg Atamnoik, a surgeon at the Ivano-Frankivsk children’s hospital.
Atamnoik works on the hospital’s front lines. He says many of those stressed mothers are unable to produce enough, if any, breastmilk to feed their fragile infants.
“Breastmilk is so important for a premature baby,” said Atamnoik.
“The tinier the baby, the higher the risk,” said Frances Jones, the coordinator of the B.C. Women’s Provincial Milk Bank.
Jones knows the benefits breastmilk can provide to a compromised infant.
She says because the internal systems of a premature infant are so undeveloped, human milk is absolutely crucial to a premature baby's survival.
“Being premature and receiving something other than human milk will increase your risk of developing NEC quite dramatically,” said Jones.
NEC, or necrotising enterocolitis, is a bowel disease that can lead to a bacterial infection, potentially killing the premature baby.
On Vancouver Island, breastmilk is collected through donors and then shipped to B.C. Women’s Hospital in Vancouver, where the milk is pasteurized. It is then distributed throughout the province.
Last year more than 4,000 children in B.C. received breastmilk through the hospital's breastmilk bank.
'They desperately need our help'
Now the Vancouver Island-based humanitarian team wants to create the same type of bank in Ukraine.
“We made a commitment based on a request from the hospital to support them in starting up a breastmilk bank,” said Bob Beckett, a member of the humanitarian team.
That bank would be located at the children’s hospital in Ivano-Frankivsk and would serve the entire region of around two million people.
“They desperately need our help,” said Beckett.
“If we can’t help them, I don’t know who will,” said Brown.
The team has a fundraising goal of $50,000. That would build the bank as well as purchase a human milk analyzer, a pasteurizer, medical freezer and a pharmaceutical refrigerator.
It's essential equipment that would save many tiny lives in Ukraine.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Liberal MP says she's leaving politics over disrespectful dialogue, threats, misogyny
Liberal MP Pam Damoff says she won't run again in the next federal election, saying she has experienced misogyny, disrespectful dialogue in politics and threats to her life.
Concerns about Plexiglass prompt inspections at some Loblaws locations in Ottawa
Inspections are underway at more than one Loblaws location in Ottawa after complaints were filed about tall Plexiglass barriers.
Federal employees will be required to spend 3 days a week in the office
Starting in September, public servants in the core public administration will be required to work in the office a minimum of three days a week. The Treasury Board Secretariat says executives will need to be in the office four days per week.
OPP officer said 'someone's going to get hurt' before wrong-way Hwy. 401 crash
As multiple Durham police cruisers were chasing a robbery suspect on the wrong side of Highway 401 Monday night, an Ontario Provincial Police officer shared his concerns, telling a dispatcher, "Someone's going to get hurt."
Ont. woman who faked pregnancy to defraud doulas arrested again on similar charges
Victims of a Brantford, Ont., woman who was sentenced to house arrest earlier this year for defrauding and deceiving doulas say they’re not surprised she’s been apprehended again on similar charges.
Five human skeletons, missing hands and feet, found outside house of Nazi leader Hermann Göring
Archeologists have unearthed the skeletons of five people, missing their hands and feet, at a former Nazi military base in Poland.
Poilievre returns to House unrepentant for calling Trudeau 'wacko,' Speaker not resigning
An unrepentant Pierre Poilievre returned to the House of Commons on Wednesday to pepper the prime minister about his drug decriminalization policies after being booted the day prior for refusing to take back calling Justin Trudeau 'wacko' over his approach to the issue.
Construction begins on LGBTQ2S+ national monument in Ottawa
Shovels have hit the ground for constuction on Canada's LGBTQ2S+ national monument in Ottawa.
B.C. man awarded $5,000 in damages in first-of-it-kind intimate image case
In a first-of-its-kind case, a B.C. tribunal has ruled on a dispute involving the non-consensual sharing of intimate images, awarding damages and issuing orders that the photos be destroyed and taken offline.