Chicago, Ill. – Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center opened Chicago’s first human milk depot on March 11, 2016. Donated human milk is an important part of care for many at-risk Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) babies, as it provides numerous benefits in the absence of the mother’s milk, including infection-fighting factors, active growth and development hormones, improved digestion and ideal nutrition. While Advocate Illinois Masonic supports breastfeeding whenever possible, donor milk can be used when the mother has a low milk supply, is ill or on certain medications, or in cases of adoption or surrogacy.
Barbara Melendi, registered dietician and previous patient at Advocate Illinois Masonic, understands the importance of breast milk for a baby, especially in the NICU, and was able to find comfort in the donated milk provided to her little one.
“Having that safety net of knowing that if I didn’t have the milk there for her that there was breast milk out there donated by some wonderful moms, who I didn’t know, was so important to me and gave me some peace of mind through this otherwise very difficult time and process,” says Melendi.
The milk depot at Advocate Illinois Masonic collects human milk donations from healthy, lactating women who are approved donors through Mothers’ Milk Bank of the Western Great Lakes. The donors are given a blood test and thoroughly screened for any communicable diseases as well as toxic substances. The donations are then sent to the milk bank, where they are pasteurized to eliminate any viruses or bacteria. After pasteurization, the milk is tested once again for safety and distributed to hospitals, including Advocate Illinois Masonic.
Advocate Illinois Masonic has been providing pasteurized human donor milk to babies since 2013. Seeing the benefits of that initiative inspired the medical center to begin accepting donations as a human milk depot to help provide the best possible care for an even wider scope of mothers and babies, Dr. Radley Helin, neonatologist at Advocate Illinois Masonic says. If you’d like to become a donor, please contact Mothers’ Milk Bank of the Great Lakes at 847-262-5134.
If you’re an approved donor who’d like to schedule an appointment to drop off a donation at Advocate Illinois Masonic, please contact Gina Juliano at 773-296-7120.
About Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center
Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center is a 397-bed non-profit teaching hospital located in the Lake View neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side. The medical center has a Level I Trauma Center and a Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the highest designations awarded by the state of Illinois, and offers comprehensive inpatient and outpatient care, including cardiovascular, oncology, digestive health and neurosciences services. A recipient of numerous awards for quality and clinical excellence, Advocate Illinois Masonic has achieved Magnet designation for excellence in nursing services from the American Nurses Credentialing Center. The medical center has also been named a Leader in LGBT Healthcare Equality by the Human Rights Campaign’s Healthcare Equality Index. Advocate Illinois Masonic is part of Advocate Health Care, the largest fully integrated health system in Illinois. For more information, visit www.advocatehealth.com/masonic.