Mission
The mission of the UAMS Milk Bank is to improve the health of Arkansas’ most vulnerable infants through safe donor milk. The UAMS Milk Bank collects, screens, processes and distributes donated milk to meet the specific medical needs of individuals for whom it is prescribed. The primary beneficiaries of milk banks are infants in neonatal intensive care units, particularly premature or ill infants. In addition, the UAMS Milk Bank values clinical excellence, ethical practice, community education and research to ensure that all individuals with a medical need will have access to pasteurized donor milk.
The UAMS Milk Bank operates under the guidelines for donor milk banks from The Human Milk Banking Association of North America. The UAMS Milk Bank was accredited by HMBANA in January of 2024 to begin safely distributing pasteurized donated human breast milk to NICUs and families in need around the state. The administration of the UAMS Milk Bank is overseen by the board of directors and the executive director who reports directly to the board of directors. The UAMS Milk Bank interacts with a panel of consultants in neonatology / pediatrics, lactation, and microbiology / infectious diseases. Additional consultation may be undertaken with representatives from nursing, immunology, pharmacology, nutrition, public health, obstetrics, pathology, food technology, law, consumer representation and other areas of business and health care. Consultants may hold positions on the Board of Directors.
Human milk diets are the standard of care for all newborn infants but has particular importance to health outcomes for premature and sick newborn infants. Mothers are taught to express and store their milk, and this milk is then fed via a tube to the critically ill infant. However, many of these mothers are themselves high risk for health complications, making this very challenging, and there are often mothers who cannot provide sufficient or any milk for their babies. When a child’s own mother is unable to provide milk for her infant, pasteurized, safe donor milk is a safe option.
The UAMS Milk Bank protects and supports breastfeeding and the use of a mother’s own milk and provides the alternative of pasteurized donor milk for medically compromised infants only when a mother’s own milk is not available.
Vision
The UAMS Milk Bank envisions a future where every family can feed their infant in the way they desire. The UAMS Milk Bank is supporting communities and families to meet the challenges of breastfeeding in their homes and communities with the goal of improving the short- and long-term health of mothers and infants all over Arkansas and its surrounding states. The UAMS Milk Bank believes that every mother who wants to provide milk for her baby should be supported to meet her goals. We pledge to support breastfeeding as the normal mode of infant feeding and provide safe pasteurized milk for vulnerable infants when their own mother’s milk is not available.
History
UAMS Milk Bank was founded with the invaluable support of the Arkansas state legislature in 2022. Extensive renovations were undertaken to build a state-of-the-art processing lab to ensure that the valuable milk processed in the milk bank was kept securely and made safe to feed to our most vulnerable Arkansas’ residents.
Dr. Misty Virmani and a group of physicians and nurses who are passionate about supporting breastfeeding as normal infant feeding and ensuring equitable provision of milk to all vulnerable infants worked together with UAMS and the legislature to secure funding, space and resources to develop what is now the UAMS Milk Bank. The UAMS Milk Bank opened its doors in September 2023 in a building situated on the main UAMS campus in Little Rock on West Monroe Street.
A Maternal Infant Risk Resource Program is currently in development in cooperation with the Arkansas Department of Health and the Minority Health Commission with a walk-in store containing resources supporting infant safety and maternal health on site in the same building as the milk bank. Outreach programs to help support communities with lactation care will be available in the near future.