Charline Ogbeni and community members celebrate the grand opening of her St. Albans milk depot
A community milk depot opened in St Albans earlier this week, the second milk depot to open in Queens where mothers are able to donate their milk for babies in need.
Charline Ogbeni, the owner of Supporting Our Mothers Initiative, celebrated the grand opening of her establishment Monday after receiving a tissue license from the NYC Department of Health that provides clearance to store donor milk. The milk is donated by women to help mothers whose own milk supply is unavailable or insufficient.
Ogbeni’s establishment, located at 177-19 120th Ave., works with the New York Milk Bank and stores milk at its St. Albans location. Employees from the New York Milk Bank pick up the donor milk, which is then pasteurized and delivered to hospitals for premature babies in NICU units. The other milk depot in Queens is located at Jamaica Hospital.
Ogbeni’s own birthing experience inspired her to create her organization. After giving birth via emergency C-section, she was unable to breastfeed right away. Her struggle to find lactation support during her first few days postpartum prompted the start of the Supporting Our Mothers Initiative.
By July of 2020, Ogbeni started her business and became a full spectrum doula and lactation consultant. “I literally had a dream and it kept recurring to me that you need to be the face of this in the community, because if you’re going through this imagine who else is,” she said.
Ogbeni hopes the new milk depot location will help to increase the breastfeeding duration rates for mothers and the number of babies who receive donor milk.
She emphasized that donated breast milk “literally saves lives” and that “one ounce of donated breast milk saves the life of 3 pre-term babies.” Breast milk, she noted, is particularly important for premature babies since it prevents the exposure of a potentially fatal intestinal…
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