Human milk banks – The benefits and issues in an Islamic setting

The benefits of human milk for both infants and mothers have been well established. Especially preterm infants benefit from breast milk. However barriers to breast milk expression in mothers with preterm babies result in a relatively low availability of human milk for these particularly vulnerable infants. To overcome this problem, human milk banks have been established in many parts of the world. The Muslim countries have been not participating in these milk sharing activities for preterm babies because of inherent religious cultural issues. This article addresses these issues and discusses potential ways to overcome these issues.