Saving African babies’ lives by banking mothers’ milk

Inside a tidy mint-green room in an old industrial park in Johannesburg, a row of freezers hums and sighs. Behind them, a silver machine the size of a dishwasher sloshes hot water over three dozen bottles of milk. A sign on the wall signals the room’s raison d’être.

Breastmilk is nature’s health plan, it reads. 

Around the world, milk banks like this one have sprung up as a solution to a public health issue that’s straightforward in itself but complicated to tackle. Breast milk can make the difference between life and death for many babies around the world, particularly those born prematurely. But getting