Human breast milk

Breastmilk provides all the energy and nutrients that an infant requires for the first months of life. However, there may be scenarios where breastfeeding from the infant’s mother’s milk may be inhibited, delayed or curtailed.

Donor human milk is the preferred alternative, particularly for very low weight pre-term neonates, where current evidence identifies benefits from supplementation with donor human milk. However, there are microbiological and chemical risks in donor human milk inherent to its human origin or introduced at the time of collection, storage or processing that may cause harm to the often highly vulnerable recipient.

The Operational guidelines for milk banks in Australia and New Zealand is located on the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care website. The Guidelines outline the principles for processing donated human milk in a manner to reduce or eliminate pathogens whilst retaining the nutritional characteristics to the greatest extent possible.

Under Queensland legislation, human breast milk is defined as a food and as such, a business processing human breast milk must comply with the Food Act 2006, the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code and the Operational guidelines for milk banks in Australia and New Zealand and is required to be licensed with the relevant local government.