Lynda Coulter will talk about her 14-year journey to establish a Human Milk Bank facility at the Countess of Chester Hospital

* Doors open 10 am * Meeting starts 10.30 * Free Refreshments*

Donor human milk banking is not a new idea. The precursor was wet nursing, but awareness of the dangers of disease transmission ended this practice in the developed world and led to the first Human Milk Bank (HMB) being set up in 1909 in Vienna. The emergence of HIV in the 1980’s raised new fears and resulted in the closure of virtually all HMBs. The introduction of reliable blood tests for HIV and other conditions in lactating mothers heralded the gradual re-emergence of HMBs both in the UK and further afield. While the practice received approval by NICE in 2010, it is still not an NHS service per se, although accepted by many (though not all) paediatric consultants. It is against this backdrop that Lynda Coulter took on the challenge to set up a HMB in Chester. The talk should be of interest to anyone interested in healthcare promotion - or indeed anyone who has been involved in bringing up a child.