Kimie: India’s First Indigenous Human Milk Pasteuriser
Read on to know how Kimie is making breast milk more accessible, available and affordable.
Breast milk is the perfect baby food, because it is made of live cells, a baby’s body can easily absorb it. It provides just the right proportion of essential nutrients, vitamins, proteins, fats and antibodies to help your baby’s body and brain develop. What’s amazing is that it also can adapt its composition to meet your baby’s needs as they get older or become sick. A preeminent baby authority, the American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP), states: "Breastfeeding ensures the best possible health and best developmental and psychosocial outcomes for the infant."
The International Milk Banking Initiative (IMBI) founded in 2015 lists 33 countries with milk bank programs. The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that the first alternative to a biological mother not being able to breast feed is the use of human milk from other sources. Human milk banks offer a solution to the mothers that cannot supply their own breast milk to their child, for reasons such as a baby being at risk of getting diseases and infections from a mother with certain diseases, or when a child is hospitalised at birth due to very low birth weight and the mother cannot provide her own milk during the extended stay for various reasons.
Like any animal-produced milk, the human-produced counterpart also needs to be pasteurised before consumption. And sadly, Indian milk banks are a capital-intensive investment chiefly because of the expressed breast milk (EBM) pasteuriser, making it a commodity of only large hospitals. But thanks to Kimie, now India has an indigenous option which is not only cheaper but also meets the world bank guidelines. One pasteurisation cycle does costs as less as 5 rupees. It can pasteurise as little as 20 ml to 300 ml of EBM in a cycle as opposed to imported version that requires atleast 1000 ml.
It is also compact and portable requiring a maximum space of less than 3 ft and is mounted on castors for easy mobility. Further more, it is also greener in practice. As opposed to imported counterparts, the mini pasteuriser does not require any special electrical or plumbing connections. Imported versions require 80 liters of water for each cycle. It can work on regular electrical connection (230 volts +/-10% 50 Hz.). It’s a fully automatic system controlled by intelligent micro controllers for pin point accuracy of milk temperature; digital display indicates elapsed time and milk temperature. Milk sensor ensures accuracy of milk temperature. An inbuilt heating system ensures that the milk is warmed to 62.5 0 C +/- 0.5 0 C. Once the milk is warmed, the micro processor will maintain the milk temperature at 62.5 0 C for 30 minutes. Inbuilt cooling system ensures that the milk is rapidly cooled. Once the hold time is over, the cooling system will automatically take over the cycle and will start rapidly cooling the milk to 4 0 C +/- 0.5 0 C within 25 minutes.
Today, many NICUs of hospitals such as KEM Hospital and DMH Hospital, Pune, Shahu Hospital, Jalgaon, DY Patil Med College, New Mumbai, Centinela Hospital, UCLA, USA are using Kimie, saving lives of thousands of new born babies.