Celebrating 10 years: The growth and impact of Ontario’s Milk Bank

Milk Bank Ontario

April 27, 2023

The Rogers Hixon Ontario Human Milk Bank, located at Mount Sinai Hospital, may look small, but it has a big mission.

“When the Milk Bank first opened in 2013, we had one goal in mind,” says Debbie Stone, former Milk Bank Director, RN, IBCLC. “We wanted to provide the healthiest start for preterm, hospitalized infants’ lives by providing safe, pasteurized donor human milk when mother’s own milk is not available, or is limited in supply.”

The Milk Bank began with three hospitals: Mount Sinai, The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and Sunnybrook. It has grown since then and now provides donor milk to 48 hospitals in Ontario. It also serves Janeway Children’s Health and Rehabilitation Centre in Newfoundland and Labrador and IWK Children’s Hospital in Nova Scotia.

“Over the past decade, we have screened more than 6,300 donors,” adds Stone. “We now pasteurize up to 160 litres of milk per week to support more fragile babies.”

The Milk Bank’s success comes from generous donors and the hard work of its team. This team includes physicians, nurse lactation consultants who support with breast/chestfeeding, and diet technicians. They work together under the leadership of directors and medical directors. The Milk Bank celebrates its next anniversary in April.

The Milk Bank through the years

Two staff members wearing hairnets smile while holding a large plastic bag filled with milk bottles inside a processing room.

Dispensing day

SickKids was the first hospital to order donor milk: 10 bottles, or 1.18 litres. In this photo, Debbie Stone, former Milk Bank Director, and Dr. Sharon Unger, Medical Director, proudly hold the first batch of pasteurized milk.

Pre-automation

Before the Milk Bank team used an automatic pump and a machine to seal bottles, they poured donor milk and sealed each bottle by hand.

A staff member in a yellow gown and blue hairnet stands at a stainless steel counter lined with filled donor milk bottles ready to be sealed.

A filled milk bottle sits under a sealing machine, surrounded by additional bottles waiting on a rotating platform.

Automation

Manually pouring and sealing donor milk was hard work, so in 2019, the Milk Bank added ergonomic machines to make the process easier and faster.

T-Bay freezer

The Milk Bank started with a single stand-alone freezer to store batches of incoming milk. As demand grew, a new walk-in freezer called a T-Bay (short for Thunder Bay) was installed in 2018. The freezer can store 1,500 litres of incoming donor milk.

A large walk-in freezer filled with organized shelves of labeled donor milk bags, with metal carts positioned in the centre of the aisle.

A row of industrial water purification units and storage tanks are set up in a utility room, with pipes and controls mounted on the wall behind them.

New water system

In 2020, to keep up with rising demand for donor milk, the Milk Bank added a third tank of purified water to support pasteurization.

Milk Bank in action

In December 2022, the Milk Bank team packed and shipped 3,647 bottles of safe donor milk in just four days. They wanted to make sure hospitals in Ontario had enough milk during the holiday season.

Staff in PPE process shipments in a receiving area filled with stacked frozen-milk delivery boxes and stainless steel workstations.

A researcher wearing a white lab coat, hair cover and face mask stands in front of large stainless steel processing equipment inside a laboratory or production facility.

Looking to the future

The Milk Bank is conducting research to further improve donor human milk for preterm infants. The team continues to explore new ways to improve processing, using new technologies, digital tools and more efficient workflows.

Thank you to our generous donors for supporting the Milk Bank and helping hospitalized infants since 2013.