Editor's Note: Our June E-Newsletter featured this article about how the Milk Bank analyzes donor human milk using the Foss Milk-o-Scan.
We’re often asked how we actually process donor human milk and what is the technology we use in our lab to fill NICU prescriptions with nutritionally-analyzed milk. For the past three and a half years Shaina Starks-Solis has overseen the production lab at the Mothers’ Milk Bank of North Texas.
Mothers’ Milk Bank of North lab technicians, hospitals and fragile babies depend on this machine’s analysis results. As Production Manager, Shaina not only understands and the technology behind our Foss FT 129 Milk-o-Scan located in our pasteurization lab, she also manages and guides our lab technicians so that they too can use the Milk-o-Scan to measure the fat, protein and lactose in pasteurized donor milk that is formulated for babies before it is shipped out to hospitals.
The FT 120 milk-o-scan is a full-range infrared spectroscopy dairy analyzer. It uses Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), a technique where lightwave technology simultaneously collects a wide range of data, reporting back specific absorption rates to a computer terminal. In our lab, FTIR is used to identify organic materials, found in the components of human milk. The machine is calibrated to USDA Federal Milk Market standards, determining the fat, protein and lactose in each human milk sample.
Our lab technicians retrieve analysis from the Milk-o-Scan that allows us to report to hospitals the exact calorie content and nutritional protein of each shipment of donor human milk.
We know donor human milk varies in nutrients from donor to donor. And we know it is beneficial for physicians to prescribe the donor human milk based on a baby’s individual needs.
We agree that it is important that the beneficiaries of this donor human milk, typically premature and critically ill infants receive the amount of calories and protein each baby needs for his or her growth and development. Therefore, we take the time to effectively use our FT 120 Milk-o-Scan on each batch pooled donor human milk we process and then send it out to hospitals.
Want to learn more about our process? Click here to watch our Executive Director Amy Vickers describe the process on The Doctors.