Bangladesh closes human milk bank after protests

ABangladesh hospital has suspended plans to give donated breast milk to babies after a backlash by clerics who said the scheme violated religious law.

The programme aimed to feed up to 500 orphans and infants of working mothers in the Muslim-majority country, which has high rates of child malnutrition and stunted growth.

Bangladesh’s top religious leadership has not yet made a ruling on the milk bank, but it was halted after critics said the plan could lead to breaches of religious law if two babies drank milk from the same mother and later married.

“Their entire marriage and lineage would become illegal,” said Gazi Ataur Rahman, a spokesman of the influential Islami Andolan Bangladesh political party.

Another cleric, Ahmed Abdul Kaiyum, said Shariah law did not allow for milk banks.

“It would go against religion,” he said, suggesting that the authorities should have discussed this “very sensitive issue” beforehand with clerics. Prominent cleric Fariduddin Masoud struck a conciliatory note, however, saying authorities should find out if and how Muslim majority nations such as Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and

Malaysia have set up human milk banks.

“We should see how they have solved the issue. We should sit together to find a solution,” he said.

The milk bank in Dhaka was slated to start this month, but project co-ordinator Mojibur Rahman said it had been delayed indefinitely because of the “widespread criticism”.

He added that the hospital had set up strict safeguards for the scheme.

“We collect and preserve milk separately and rigorously record (donor) identities,” he said yesterday, a day after the milk bank’s suspension was announced.

Top child specialists had backed the milk bank, saying it was needed to help save child lives as well as aid their growth.

“Human milk banks are essential for orphans and critically ill children, especially to save the lives of the babies who are being treated at the hospital’s intensive care unit and whose mothers are not available,” said Mahbubul Haque, a top doctor at Dhaka’s main children’s hospital.

“Milk banks are established in major hospitals in the West. We should set up more such banks in all our top hospitals for children,” he said.

Some 90% of Bangladesh’s 168mn people are Muslim.