When Ofir was born, she was so tiny that she could fit in the palm of her mother’s hand.
Tal had gone into labor at 24 weeks. Baby Ofir entered this world in critical condition. She spent several months of her life in a hospital neonatal unit.
To make matters worse, Tal had no way to feed her newborn baby.
Like so many moms who deliver prematurely, Tal was not able to produce her own milk. No matter what she tried, she was helpless to nourish her daughter …
And like most preemies, Ofir’s digestive system was underdeveloped and could not handle the fortified formula available in the hospital — and her fragile immune system left her susceptible to germs that could take her life.
Thank God for donated breast milk!
Today, Ofir is thriving. The nutrition and antibodies that she so desperately needed to survive came from donated breast milk provided by MAGEN DAVID ADOM (Israel’s Red Cross and emergency medical services organization).
The National Human Milk Bank of Israel is housed in MAGEN DAVID ADOM’s Marcus National Blood Center in Ramla, Israel. Just as the fortified climate-controlled Marcus Center safeguards the emergency blood reserves needed to sustain the lives of Israel’s 9 million residents, it also ensures that the life-giving breast milk so essential for the nation’s premature babies is kept safe and secure.
Before the Human Milk Bank — the only one in Israel — was established in 2020, a premature baby of 24–26 weeks old was in grave danger. But now many thousands of these babies are surviving — and thriving — every year!
Dr. Sharron Bransburg Zabary, director of the National Human Milk Bank of Israel, refers to it as “the temple of mother’s milk.” The donated breast milk — she calls it “white gold” — is painstakingly handled and safety tested according to strict standards set by the Ministry of Health of Israel. Even the ceilings in the laboratories where the milk is processed are painted yellow to preserve the crucial vitamin C in each drop.
The breast milk donation process begins as MAGEN DAVID ADOM identifies potential donor moms from across Israel and carefully interviews them to ensure their health and lifestyle are compatible with donating healthy milk. These women provide about seven liters of milk a month which they immediately freeze in bags provided by the Milk Bank.
Then MAGEN DAVID ADOM picks up, tests, pasteurizes, stores, and distributes the donated milk to hospitals all across Israel. Each packet is initially processed at minus 80 degrees and subjected to countless tests and processes to eliminate deadly food-borne pathogens and staph bacteria.
Last year, the Milk Bank provided 2,060 liters of human breast milk to infants in neonatal units. And it did this thanks to the financial support of individual donors like you.
Since the preemies generally require only .5 or 1 cc of breast milk per meal, these donations made to the Milk Bank nourish thousands of at-risk babies every year.
There are approximately 15,000 premature babies born every year in Israel, many of them weighing barely three pounds.
These tiny and fragile newborns need our help. Like other Red Cross organizations, MAGEN DAVID ADOM depends upon the generous support of friends like you. Your gift of any amount today will help save the lives of preemies like Ofir and put them safely back in their mother’s arms.
Please give your best gift today to save these babies in Israel. You can make it possible to collect, process, store, and deliver this vital breast milk to the infants who need it most!
Little girls like Ofir are a living testimony to the value and necessity of the National Human Milk Bank of Israel. Tal — and mothers like her — simply does not have the words to express how helpless she felt as a mother not being able to feed her baby — and how grateful she is now for the compassion and generosity of friends like you.
You make it possible for MAGEN DAVID ADOM to save these precious little baby girls and boys. This cannot happen without the support of friends like you.
Please give your best gift today. Your donation of any amount is literally the gift of life for a newborn baby like Ofir, so tiny she could fit in her mother’s hand.
MAGEN DAVID ADOM, Israel’s national Red Cross society, provides emergency medical care and ambulance services for victims of terror, natural disasters, automobile accidents, and other emergencies in Israel. It is also responsible for the nation’s blood supply. MAGEN DAVID ADOM is saving lives in Israel every day.
