Addressing milk kinship in milk banking: experience from Singapore’s first donor human milk bank

INTRODUCTION The KK Human Milk Bank (KKHMB), the first and only human milk bank in Singapore, was established in August 2017 to provide safe pasteurised donor human milk (PDHM) to vulnerable preterm and sick infants with insufficient own mother’s milk, as the use of donor human milk (DHM) is potentially lifesaving for these infants.[1,2,3,4] To promote inclusivity and equal access to DHM by all the communities in our multiracial country with a Malay population of 13.5%,[5] the concept of milk kinship in Islam, which could hinder the acceptability of PDHM in Muslim preterm infants, had to be addressed. CONCEPT OF MILK KINSHIP Milk kinship is established when a child receives human milk from a woman other than his biological mother.…