Odisha got its first human milk bank at a government hospital here on March 9. It will provide breast milk to newborns whose mothers could not breastfeed them, infants whose mothers have died, are unwell or cannot produce enough milk, and babies who cannot suck on their mother’s milk.Dr Laxmidhar Sahu, Capital Hospital Director, said, “The milk can be stored in the bank up to 6 months after pasteurization. Initially, the stored milk will be provided to in-house infants. Depending on the response, we will open such facilities in other centres too.”This state-of-the-art milk bank will ensure the retention of the nutritional value of mother’s milk he added. On the first day of opening, 19 lactating mothers donated their milk to the bank, which was later fed to their children.“For pasteurization, we require at least 2.5 litres of milk. The commercial use of the milk bank has not yet started. At present, mothers are storing milk only for their children. There is a need to sensitize them to donate and also counsel the families of newborns to use this facility,” Dr Dhananjay Das, deputy director of the hospital, said.The health reports of donors will be kept in the hospital, which will ensure that the stored milk is properly used, he added.“Our volunteers are motivating mothers for milk donation. It is very simple and does not require several tests as done in case of blood donation. Our responsibility is to preserve milk hygienically,” he said.Read all minute-by-minute news updates for Uttar Pradesh election results 2022, Punjab election results 2022, Uttarakhand election results 2022, Manipur election results 2022, and Goa election results 2022.Click here for seat-wise LIVE result updates.