‘Un-Islamic’: Pakistan’s First Breast Milk Bank Forced To Shut Down

Karachi: A breast milk bank, the first of its kind in Pakistan for premature babies, has had to be shut down after clerics deemed it to be ‘un-Islamic’.

The milk bank in a Karachi hospital was inaugurated in June after it received religious approval in December from a provincial Islamic seminary.

But it had to be closed soon as approval was withdrawn soon after, reported AFP.

“Breast milk is the only way to improve chances of survival of premature babies,” said Dr Jamal Raza, executive director of the Sindh Institute of Child Health and Neonatology Hospital, where the bank was set up.

“People have no idea what this is about. Only premature babies were going to be given this milk,” Dr Raza added.

Pakistan’s neonatal mortality rate of 39 deaths per 1,000 live births is one of the highest in South Asia, according to UNICEF, the UN children’s agency. Hence, the milk bank was established to help premature babies survive.

A fatwa, or religious edict, approving the facility was issued in December 2023 by Jamia Darul Uloom, an Islamic advisory body in the province. However, the government’s National Council of Islamic Ideology questioned whether it risked breaking Islamic codes on kinship, which dictate that husband and wife cannot be breastfed by the same woman.

“The child’s family must know who the donors are to not complicate the issue of future marriages between such families,” the head of research at the council told AFP.

Authorities at the hospital are negotiating for the breast milk bank to be reopened, doctors and the national Islamic council said on Friday.