The Human Milk Foundation

This cause was part of May day Race
This unique race URL is https://ecoracing.co/cause/the-human-milk-foundation-1548/

The Human Milk Foundation provides donor human milk to sick premature babies in hospital neonatal intensive care units and mums at home with cancer. Much like donated blood, donor human milk can be life-saving. Babies born early are at risk of a number of conditions due to their immature immune systems. One such condition is necrotising enterocolitis (NEC) - this condition kills more babies each year than childhood leukaemia. Human milk protects babies against developing NEC, so when mum is unable to produce milk or when she is very unwell, donor milk acts like a medicine to protect the baby.

Many more families have needed our service during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet our funding has been cut for the year due to event cancellations and restrictions. To meet the need for donor milk, we urgently need to scale up milk bank operations. It costs us £100 to onboard each milk donor, which pays for their donor packs, blood tests, screening and equipment. We currently have to turn mothers away who want to donate their milk due to lack of sufficient funds, which is heartbreaking. This precious milk could be going to babies and saving lives.

Every balloon you buy really does make a difference:

£10 - (3 balloons) would pay for a milk donor onboarding pack.

£20 - (6 balloons) would feed a premature baby for a day.

£50 - (16 balloons) keeps our volunteers delivering milk for a week.

£100 (33 balloons) pays to fully recruit one milk donor – whose milk would feed on average 20 babies.

You can decorate and name your balloons, then track their progress via Google Maps after the race begins! First prize for the balloon that travels the farthest is £500 cash, second prize is an Apple iPad and there will also be 10 lucky winners of £10 book tokens.

Donor milk is currently a scarce and precious resource. Due to a lack of funding to human milk banks, there is not enough donor milk available for every baby who needs it to have access to it. This means that only the very tiniest and sickest babies who meet specific criteria are considered eligible, and many babies therefore continue to develop NEC and very sadly die.

It doesn't have to be this way. We believe that every baby who could benefit should have access to donor milk. With your help we can make this a reality and save babies' lives - your present makes their future.

Every balloon bought helps us towards our goal. Good luck in the race and thank you for your support!

Our fundraising target is: £1000

Gross monies raised so far: £1731

Supporters so far: 109

Tagged in: babies milk donormilk donor milk human milk breastfeeding premature babies nicu hospital NHS

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