When it comes to giving their babies the best possible start in life, mothers will stop at nothing. Yet, for many, accessing safe and healthy breast milk is a luxury they can't always afford. In South Africa, an average of 15% or 1 in 7 babies of all births are born prematurely annually and breast milk is their best hope for survival.
South African Breastmilk Reserve (SABR) hosted a launch, introducing the 'So Safe' breast milk pasteuriser, a revolutionary development in the treatment of newborns. The event honoured SABR’s objective to improve access to human milk banking in low-income health systems and to provide cheap breastfeeding technologies in conjunction with World Breastfeeding Week 2024 ( August 1 – August 7), themed as “Closing the Gap”. South African Breastmilk Reserve (SABR) aims to ensure that babies’ lives are saved by providing pasteurised donor breast milk to protect infants from viruses that might be present in unpasteurised milk using the SoSAFE breast milk pasteuriser which is a proudly South African solution designed by SKEG Holdings, leading to better health outcomes and shorter hospital stays in Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs).
‘’This is not a way of substituting for maternal lactation, this is a way to close the gap that exists. When a hospitalised mom is in the ICU and their baby is on life support, it’s how we make that baby survive,’’ says Stasa Jordan, Executive Director of SABR. The SoSAFE represents 21 years of advanceme.