This article was originally published in the March 2024 edition of Héma-Québec’s Magazine. All issues of the Magazine are available here.

Dr. Gilles Delage, former Vice-President of Medical Affairs – Microbiology

10 years of tiny miracles with the Public Mothers’ Milk Bank

In 2014, the Héma-Québec team was mandated to set up the Public Mothers’ Milk Bank, a brand-new service in Québec. Once it was up and running, faulty pasteurizers, higher than anticipated rejection rates and other pitfalls abounded, but it was nothing that the experts running this Québec treasure couldn’t handle.

Already highly skilled in human products, the team dove headfirst into this project with limited knowledge of the field.

Before establishing the PMMB, the team in charge visited several milk banks around the world to learn more about best practices and procedures to follow. Then came recruiting its generous donors, creating a list of donor eligibility criteria and a list of medications that, when taken regularly, affect a potential donor’s eligibility. This was all “pretty simple” to figure out, according to Dr. Delage.

The first operational issues at the PMMB arose when installing pasteurizers in the Héma-Québec labs. The equipment turned out to be faulty, delaying the whole program rollout: in just a few months, the labs went through two different pasteurizers.

But the real challenge was to lower the high initial rejection rates, caused by the presence of bacterial cultures in donations: in the beginning, 33% of batches were rejected, whereas HémaQuébec’s target is 8% to 10%.

“We conducted a survey that showed the issue was at the source, namely when mothers collected and stored surplus milk at home,” recounts Dr. Delage. “We improved the initial training for donors, which quickly solved this issue. I’d say that was the toughest challenge we faced.”

Now in retirement, Dr. Delage can proudly say he helped lay the groundwork for the Public Mothers’ Milk Bank, which, after a few initial bumps in the road, is now a great success that Québec can be proud of. Each year, it improves the health and lives of 500 very premature babies.

“I spent part of my career in a pediatric hospital, so this was a passion project of mine,” Dr. Delage tells us. “It let me do what little I could to improve pediatric care. I’m so very proud.”