Varsha Dabhi is worried about her 25-day-old son, born prematurely at seven months. Still learning to breathe with underdeveloped lungs, he is one of the 50 infants admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital. Yet despite her own anxiety, the mother of three has been donating breastmilk to the hospital’s Ma Vatsalya Mothers Milk Bank, offering a sliver of hope to other babies whose mothers cannot provide enough nourishment.
“My son is stable right now and is being fed in the NICU. The excess milk I have is donated to other children in the hospital. We get a lot of support from the staff, and I have also bonded with other mothers here. We talk about our children while they are being treated inside,” Varsha tells The Indian Express. Varsha and her husband Ajay are farmers from Kapadvanj town in Kheda district.
Gujarat has six operational comprehensive lactation management centres (CLMCs) or human milk banks in the public sector. Over 18 years—since the first CLMC came up in Surat in 2008—48,983 women from various socio-economic backgrounds have contributed an extraordinary 14,966 litres of human milk, providing life-saving nourishment to 37,771 newborns in the state.
Like Sapna Rav. Sapna is battling concerns about her first child, a boy, born prematurely at seven months at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital. “After testing, the hospital staff are giving my milk to two other children who really need it,” says the 21-year-old. Her own baby is very weak. “His condition is not very good; he has a tube down his nose…,” she adds.
Sapna’s husband, Indrajit Rav, who hails from Uttar Pradesh and has been working in the metal fabrication business in Ahmedabad for the last two years, tells The Indian Express: “Giving another child milk is a good deed. What is the harm if another child gets it?”
Khushboo Jani, a staff nurse at the Ma Vatsalya Mothers Milk Bank, told The Indian Express, “Varsha ben has donated about 5 litres of milk, while Sapna ben has donated 13 litres in the last month. The amount of milk varies…while some mothers can express about 150 ml of milk in a 20-minute session, for others, it may be 50 ml. This depends on their diet pattern, socio-economic conditions, and mental status.”
A mother driven by empathy
Among the regular breast milk donors at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital is Dr Sheetal Chaudhary, Assistant Professor of Botany at RG Science College. With her second child almost a year old, Chaudhary visited the hospital for three consecutive days, from May 14, to donate milk before heading on a vacation to Rajasthan. Remarkably, Chaudhary neither gave birth at the hospital nor had her infant son treated there.
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“Now that he is almost a year old, my child has begun eating other foods. So, I thought I should donate milk to other children. I had donated milk at a hospital in Rajasthan earlier,” she said.
Asked what motivated her, she added, “There is no replacement for mother’s milk. When my first child was born, I did not have sufficient milk and had to mix cow’s milk, and I used to feel very bad about it. So now, when I have more milk than what my child requires, I thought I should donate it. I searched online for a nearby milk bank, and the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital came up, so I went and donated there.”
How the system works
Dr Geet Gunjana Khaitan, Head of Department, Paediatrics, GMERS MCH Gandhinagar, said lactation counsellors engage with mothers of babies admitted in post-natal wards after their delivery and encourage them to donate their surplus breast milk for babies admitted at the special newborn care unit (SNCU). “Mothers who agree to donate their milk are screened for various infections. Once the reports are negative, informed consent is taken from the mothers. The mothers express their milk through breast pumps in sterile bottles. The collected milk is then pasteurised and stored in deep freezers. To ensure that the donated milk is free of any contamination, milk samples are sent for culture to check for the growth of any organism, both pre- and post-pasteurisation. The non- contaminated milk is then stored in separate bottles in the deep freezer,” she explained.
“We receive two types of milk: one is MOM, or mother’s own milk. This is the milk donated by mothers for their own babies. The second is PDHM or pasteurised donor human milk. This is the milk which is actually donated by mothers for other babies, such as preterm, low birth weight babies, and sick babies admitted at SNCU,” Dr Khaitan added.
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Surat takes the lead
Gujarat’s public sector Human Milk Bank ecosystem started in 2008 and gained momentum in 2019. The first CLMC came up at the Surat Municipal Institute of Medical Education and Research (SMIMER) on December 11, 2008—the seventh such human milk bank in India.
Named Project Yashoda, the CLMC conducted a breast milk donation camp in 2009. Since then, it has conducted 33 camps, collecting 159 litres of breast milk from 3,016 donor mothers, said Dr Nirali Mehta, Associate Professor of Paediatrics at SMIMER, adding that they have partnered up with an NGO to expand their reach. The hospital has fed an average of more than 450 newborns per year, she said.
The second centre came up in Surat’s New Civil Hospital in 2019. That same year, Vadodara’s Sir Sayajirao General (SSG) Hospital and GMERS Valsad each added a CLMC in October and December, respectively. Dr Ranjan Aiyer, Medical Superintendent of SSG Hospital, said their milk bank has more than 15,000 registered milk donors. GMERS Valsad Civil Hospital, meanwhile, has 20.6 litres of excess milk as of May 17, said Dr Chintu Chaudhari, Professor of Paediatrics.
In August 2021, another human milk bank was established at the GMERS-run Gandhinagar Civil Hospital, followed by Ahmedabad Civil Hospital on August 28, 2025. “We started operations in August 2021. We had a collection of nearly 5 litres then, and it has increased to nearly 21 litres now due to increased awareness and counselling,” Dr Geet Gunjana Khaitan, Head of Department, Paediatrics, GMERS Gandhinagar MCH, said.
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As of May 17, Ahmedabad Civil Hospital has 47.822 litres of banked human milk, Dr Rakesh Joshi, Medical Superintendent, said.
At Surat’s New Civil Hospital CLMC, Rotary clubs are considering a donation of essential equipment—including a pasteurizer machine, electronic breast pumps, refrigerators, deep freezers, storage systems, and other critical tools. The proposal also includes a human milk bank van, designed to collect milk directly from donor mothers. If this plan materialises, it will mark Gujarat’s first mobile human milk collection unit, extending the CLMC’s reach.
Saurashtra to follow
Former Gujarat health minister Rushikesh Patel said in August last year that the government had approved three human milk banks in the Saurashtra region, which did not have a single one. The ones at Sir Takhtasinhji Civil Hospital in Bhavnagar and Guru Gobindsingh Government Hospital in Jamnagar are expected to be operational by August this year. Dr Mehul Gosai at Bhavnagar Civil Hospital said that the hospital caters to the entirety of southern Saurashtra, an annual intake of 2,500-3,500 children in the NICU. “Our primary projections show that we will need 2 to 3.5 litres of donor milk per day,” he said.
Rajkot Civil Hospital will get the third human milk bank in the region, and it is likely to become operational within a month, by June or July 2026. Dr Monali Makadia, Medical Superintendent of Rajkot Civil Hospital, told The Indian Express, “Our semi-automatic pasteurisation machine has already been installed. Currently, testing and calibration are underway. We should have a functional human milk banking system operational in a fortnight to a month.”
After the donated breastmilk is screened for infections, it is pasteurised and stored in deep freezers. (Photo courtesy: GMERS Valsad Medical College and Hospital)