Royal Alexandra Hospital opens new milk bar for sick and premature infants

A big change is coming to how some of the smallest Albertans are fed at the Royal Alexandra Hospital.

Dilara Polat and her husband’s daughter Zoe was born at 25 weeks.

“A very surprised micro-premature baby,” said Polat.

She is one of the first mothers to take part in a new ‘milk bar’. Saying that before, she would need to work with the nurses to modify her milk for Zoe.

“Nurses are working less on milk prep and more focusing on my baby, which is very reassuring,” said Polat.

The new hospital department includes eight specially trained milk room staff who prepare mothers’ breast milk for preterm and sick babies with compromised immune systems ahead of time.

This nurse telling me this frees up her colleagues to help others and decreases the risk of infection, so this life-saving work goes uninterrupted in a safer environment than before.

“It was challenging because there was no dedicated space to do it, and it took up to 20 per cent of the nurses’ time,” explained Heather Chinnery, the manager of advanced practice nursing at the Stollery NICU at the Royal Alexandra Hospital.

And for mothers like Polat, it gives her more control over the timing of her days.

“Knowing that there’s a time schedule where they’re working on things actually puts me in a routine so I can sleep, eat, and take care of myself,” she explained.

The milk bar at the Stollery Children’s Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the Royal Alexandra Hospital is the first of its kind in Alberta. But a similar milk room is set to open in Calgary this summer at Alberta Children’s Hospital.