Human milk banks will be set up in hospitals in Isfahan, Khorasan Razavi, Tehran, and Fars provinces in the coming weeks, announced Dr. Mohammad Heydarzadeh, director of the Health Ministry’s Neonatal Department. “The banks are essential for premature neonates as infant formula can never be an alternative to mother’s milk which is the best nutrition for a baby’s healthy growth,” he told ISNA. The first human milk bank in the country was inaugurated two weeks ago at Al-Zahra Hospital in Tabriz, East Azarbaijan Province.
A human milk bank, or breast milk bank, is a service which collects, screens, processes, and dispenses by prescription human milk donated by nursing mothers who are not biologically related to the recipient infant. “Iran needs to catch up with the world in this area,” Heydarzadeh said. It is the second country in the region to establish mother’s milk banks after Saudi Arabia.
