Upon hearing that a hospital in Karachi had established a milk bank for babies, Mohammad Munawwar felt an immense sense of relief.
With his wife critically ill and their premature son Ayan in the hospital, the 52-year-old father had been tirelessly collecting milk from various female relatives who were breastfeeding their own babies, multiple times a day. His joy was short-lived; the bank closed last month due to complaints from Islamic clerics, even before a single ounce could be deposited. This decision left disheartened not only Munawwar but also the doctors who had dedicated over 12 months to the bank.
Author: Shah Medu
According to the international news media theguardian.com, Dr Jamal Raza said, “We had been working on the bank [for] a year and had been in intense discussions with the religious clerics from Jamia Darul Uloom Karachi [for] the last eight months,” He is the executive director of the Sindh Institute of Child Health and Neonatology (SICHN), which had established as the first-ever milk bank in Pakistan, in collaboration with Unicef.
He remarked, the bank was inaugurated on 12 June. Before that, the scholars had raised several concerns, all of which were addressed, and after finally getting a nod from the seminary.
Finally, the seminary has now withdrawn their fatwa of assent, saying it had new advice, the hospital minght find it not only “difficult but almost impossible to adhere to the strict conditions” set down by the institution’s clerics.
Pakistan Ulema Council’s Chairperson Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi said, “The objective of the doctors who wanted to set up the human milk bank may be in good faith, but we concur with Jamia Darul Uloom Karachi, and do not think it needs to be encouraged,” though he refused to elaborate.
The kinship tie is the source of the complexity. According to Islamic law, if a baby is breastfed by a woman who is not its original mother, the newborn and any of that woman’s other children cannot get married in the future.
Concerns are exacerbated by the fact that milk can be blended from multiple sources and anonymous contributors are in the 750 milk banks spread across almost 70 different countries.
Physician Hassan Jabbar, who oversees the 52-bed newborn unit, stated that Ayan is not the only infant whose life is at risk. Premature babies stay in the facility until they are well enough to return home, usually five to eight in total. For example, a baby born at 26 weeks will stay for an average of six weeks.
Doctors warn that there are risks associated with formula milk in areas where there is a lack of adherence to recommended practices like as sterilising bottles and teats or ensuring that the water used for mixing is clean. “To save money, mothers from lower socioeconomic groups frequently dilute the amount of milk powder in the water to make it last longer,” according to Akram.
Akram claimed, Despite laws promoting breastfeeding, formula marketing is nevertheless persistent and has an effect. It is currently against the law for businesses that manufacture breastmilk substitutes to contact healthcare facilities or for medical experts to endorse their goods.
Pakistani moms exclusively breastfeed their children in just 48% of cases, compared to 64% in India and 65% in Bangladesh. 82% of mothers in Sri Lanka nurse their infants for the first six months of life.
When contacted for comment, the clerics remained silent.
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Source: firstpost.com | tortoisemedia.com | theguardian.com | opindia.com | fanverse.org
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