Denis Brutus*
The first hospital to have ever formerly frozen and distributed donor milk was launched in Vienna in the year 1909. Currently, there are more than 500 nonprofit human milk banks operating in around 40 countries run by either charities or hospitals with Kenya being the third country in the sub Saharan Africa to have done so at the Pumwani maternity hospital establishment.
The hospital’s human milk bank pasteurizes milk for the mother’s own hospitalized baby (personalized milk) and for donation however before doing so, the milk should be screened for presence of potential pathogenic microbes for instance Staphylococcus aurous and total aerobic flora thanks to specific legislations that regulate the activity of human milk banks. Any sample of milk that is found to test positive for either of the above mentioned microbes is acknowledged unfit for human consumption and discarded.
The purpose of this study is to determine the prevalence of potentially pathogenic microorganisms that indicate the hygienic and sanitary conditions of human milk sample collected at the Pumwani maternity hospital milk bank. One hundred samples of human milk will be collected from the Pumwani maternity hospital milk bank (both pre pasteurized and post pasteurized), and submitted to the laboratory for microbiological analysis. Later on the samples will be plated on both McConkey and Blood Agar media depending on the type of microbe.
The results will be read 24 hours later and submitted back to the Human Milk Bank (HMB) department. This will provide great information to the department concerning the hygiene of the procedures involved particularly during pasteurization and assist in improving where flaws have been spotted for better services.