Pakistan’s first breast milk bank opposed by clerics

A hospital that launched the first breast milk bank for premature babies is negotiating for it to be reopened after clerics deemed it un-Islamic, doctors and the Islamic council said on Friday.

The milk bank in Karachi received religious approval in December from a Jamia Darul Uloom Karachi, but that approval was withdrawn almost as soon as the facility opened in June, forcing it to shut.

“Breast milk is the only way to improve the chances of the survival of premature babies,” said Jamal Raza, a doctor and the executive director of the Sindh Institute of Child Health and Neonatology (SICHN) 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,” Raza added.

The facility was intended to help premature babies survive in a country where the neonatal mortality rate is 39 deaths per 1,000 live births, according to the UN children’s agency — one of the highest in South Asia.

A fatwa approving the facility was issued in December 2023 by Jamia Darul Uloom Karachi.

However, the Council of Islamic Ideology later questioned whether it risked breaking religious 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 Inamullah told AFP.

“We are confident that the outcome will be favourable,” Inamullah said.