'Operation Foster Milk' helps infants in typhoon-hit areas

MANILA, Philippines - Some of the telltale marks of the wrath of typhoon “Sendong” in the southern cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan still linger like ugly scars to permanently remind everyone that Mother Nature can only take so much of man’s harmful ways.

There was an upside though, to the devastations wreaked by Sendong on the people’s lives and property. The tragedy created a number of accidental and incidental heroes, some of whose exploits were told and retold, while others will remain unknown mainly because of personal choice.

“Operation Foster Milk” is about the unsung heroes who did their “modest contribution” to provide aid and comfort to the Sendong victims, notably the most vulnerable of them all — the infants.

Pepsi Cola Products Philippines Inc. played a crucial role in this story.

Apart from Pepsi, the cast consisted of lactating mothers, the volunteers from the medical profession and other sectors, and other concerned private corporations, specifically Kalusugan ng Mag-Ina Inc., Medela House, PGH Lactation Unit and Milk Bank, and Cebu Pacific Air.

Operation Foster Milk began with lactating mothers donating their breast milk to help feed the infants dislocated by Sendong and whose lives were in the throes of death owing to hunger, malnutrition and sickness.

Most of them were temporarily housed in jam-packed evacuation centers in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan even after Sendong has long left the country.

Dr. Jessamine Sareno, of the non-government organization Kalusugan ng Mag-Ina Inc., said she was in Cagayan de Oro for the holidays, opening a window for her to see the devastation up close and personal.

Apprised about the extent of social damage dealt by Sendong, Sareno felt the need to reactivate Operation Foster Milk, which was initially launched in the aftermath of typhoon “Ondoy” which similarly left a vast swathe of devastation in Luzon in September 2009.

“The initial network of support groups that were established in Ondoy helped a lot to reactivate Operation Foster Milk for the victims of Sendong,” Sareno said.

She, however, admitted that they had to overcome certain challenges concerning the basic needs to keep the operation going.

These issues involved the absence of a special storage facility or “human milk bank” in Cagayan de Oro, inadequacy of donated mother’s milk, air and land transport for the pasteurized human milk from Manila to Cagayan de Oro, absence of accurate census data from the evacuation centers pertaining to the mothers and infants and other vital information, the absence of freezers at the evacuation centers, and lack of support lactation teams to implement simultaneous missions in the various evacuation centers.

Sareno pointed out that frozen human milk can only be stored for two days, hence the necessity for the simultaneous feeding.

Pepsi played a vital role in ensuring safe and speedy transport of the human milk donations “in an intact cold chain.”

The soft drinks giant came in handy for transportation purposes of the mothers’ milk donations, from the donors to the government-run Milk Bank pasteurization facility at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) to the intended beneficiaries in Cagayan de Oro.

A Pepsi team collected the pasteurized milk from the PGH Milk Bank for delivery to the Cebu Pacific cargo terminal at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport prior to air shipment to Cagayan de Oro where another Pepsi team fetched it at the Lumbia airport for delivery to the local Department of Health office which had storage freezers.

In addition, Pepsi donated 10 coolers used as transport containers.

There is no argument to the fact that children, especially the infants, are the most vulnerable in times of calamity, and there is no telling how many babies survived simply because they were given the quintessential mother’s milk when they needed it most.

The mission enabled parents to cope with emergency situations which became doubly difficult if the mothers were not breastfeed-capable, compounded by the inaccessibility of formula milk.

In the face of such a scenario, both the mother and her baby are at the mercy of the elements and the circumstances.

Operation Foster Milk was officially launched in the country in March 2009 when the PGH’s Human Milk Bank became fully operational following delivery of its pasteurizer from Italy.

The facility was meant to address the needs of critically ill newborn babies at the PGH who were subsequently fed with donated breast milk collected and pasteurized at the milk bank. Under normal circumstances, the bank needs at least 10 liters of human milk a day.

Sareno looks forward to the day when human milk pasteurizers are available in every region to widen its coverage so that practically no infant would be wanting of mother’s milk for his or her daily nutritional requirement.