Pleas seek mother’s milk for Covid-19 orphans

The Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights officials said they have acted on several such requests on their helpline number, or through people who tagged them on social media

While requests for leads on hospital beds, oxygen cylinders, plasma and medicines galore on social media amid the Covid-19 pandemic in the capital, pleas for breast milk donors for newborns and infants whose mothers were infected with the virus or succumbed to it are also slowly making their way onto our timelines.

Between Sunday and Monday, a Delhi-based family’s plea, for a breast milk donor for a newborn whose mother died of Covid-19 last week, caught the attention of Twitter. (Courtesy Laerdal Global Health)

The Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) said that they have acted on several similar requests on their helpline number or through people who tagged them on social media. Officials at breast milk banks in Delhi too said that they have been receiving several such request from many private maternity hospitals.

Between Sunday and Monday, a Delhi-based family’s plea, for a breast milk donor for a newborn whose mother died of Covid-19 last week, caught the attention of Twitter. A family friend whose number was shared in the message confirmed the authenticity of the message and said that they managed to arrange milk from personal acquaintances.

In another request floating on social media, a Lucknow-based family pleaded for a breast milk donor for a day-old infant whose Covid-positive mother died while giving birth. Several others requested for breast milk donors for infants separated from Covid-19 infected mothers.

Abhinav Sharma, a resident of Rajendra Nagar, said that his wife, a new mother, tested positive for Covid-19 last week. “We had to find a milk donor for our one-week-old son. We put out a request on Instagram and Facebook following which several lactating mothers approached us. We then contacted a breast milk bank for guidance, and they helped in the selection of the donor and collection of milk,” he said.

Ohika Chakraborty Malik, the spokesperson at Breast Milk Foundation in Safdarjung Enclave, said, “We recently received a request from a private maternity hospital in Rohini wherein the mother was Covid positive and had given birth to twins. We sent them batches of milk stored with us.”

Malik said that there is a scarcity of stored mother’s milk at their bank currently. “There has been no donation amid the pandemic. Our freezer is almost empty right now. We request lactating mothers to come forward and donate milk so that we can help more such kids,” she added.

Officials at the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) said they have also received several requests for donors through social media in the last few weeks. Ranjana Prasad, a member of the commission, said, “We helped such families connect to the milk banks and possible milk donors. We also counselled them to not panic and start giving pasteurised milk to infants whose mothers are not in a position to nurse them.”

Nurses working in maternity wards across several Covid designated hospitals also said infected mothers can nurse their infants while taking all precautions.

Babita Rani, a senior nursing officer at the Covid maternity ward at the Employees’ State Insurance Model Hospital in Basaidarapur, said, “We have several such mothers at our hospital. We make them wear masks, and wash their hands before nursing their kids. In case the mothers are too weak to sit for long then we express milk and feed the kid. In case mother died of Covid or any other complication, the infant can be given pasteurised milk.”