Children’s Hospital of Richmond (CHoR) at VCU is now home to Virginia’s first milk depot, providing pasteurized human milk to babies that need it. Parents pre-screened to donate can schedule a curbside drop-off appointment at CHoR, pull into the breezeway at the Children’s Pavilion and donate their extra milk to a member of the lactation services team. The CHoR nutrition team then packages and ships donated milk to The King’s Daughters Milk Bank, where it is pasteurized and tested before being distributed to hospitals along the East Coast.

Each year, preterm birth affects nearly 400,000 babies, and the risk of premature or sick babies developing devastating intestinal infections is more than 10 times higher if they are fed formula instead of human milk. “Human milk is powerful,” explains Gauri Gulati, M.D., IBCLC. “It’s more than just nutrition, providing protection and immune support. For some families with breastfeeding challenges, donor milk can make a real difference.”