May 15, 2025
EDMONTON – Infants in the Stollery Children Hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at the Royal Alexandra Hospital are benefiting from a newly opened centralized milk room for the storage, preparation and nutritional fortification of fresh expressed breast milk, donor breast milk and specialized infant formula.
Since March 31, eight milk room staff have been working seven days a week to process and prepare feedings for preterm and sick babies in the NICU who have compromised immune systems. Staff in the milk room have received specialized training in feeding order basics, sanitation and infection control, and human milk and formula management and storage.
“Previously, NICU nurses were responsible for preparing infant feeds at the bedside, which is a busy environment with infection, prevention and control challenges,” says Heather Chinnery, Manager, Advanced Practice Nursing, Stollery NICU at the Royal Alexandra Hospital. “Some staff were spending upwards of 20 per cent of their time on milk preparation. Now thanks to the milk bar team, our NICU nurses can spend more time providing direct nursing care to their fragile patients.”
On average, 90 per cent of the patients on the 69-bed Stollery NICU receive breast milk, while the remainder rely on fortified formula. “Previously, one part-time worker managed specialty formula storage and preparation for NICU patients,” says Shannon Rendall, Director of Patient Food Services at the Royal Alex. “Now, thanks to this collaborative effort, our team of milk room workers will take on the additional responsibility of the storage, preparation and nutritional fortification of breast milk and donor human milk in this newly constructed, state-of-the-art centralized milk room.”
The Stollery NICU Milk Bar is the first centralized milk room in the province. It was made possible following years of collaborative planning between Stollery NICU clinical staff and Royal Alex Patient Food Services, and a $750,000 grant from the federal Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program, used to renovate and equip the new kitchen space.
For Madison Prah, being able to provide milk for her son Shiloh — who was born in January at 25 weeks — felt like the most important role she had during their stay in the NICU.
“As a mother in the NICU, you want to know that your milk is being taken care of because it is so important for the nutrition of your baby,” says Prah. “To learn dedicated staff are preparing exactly what your baby needs in such a clean and sanitized environment alleviates some stress of being here. It also means the nurses can spend more time directly caring for Shiloh instead of having to portion out milk at the bedside.”
Mothers who express their breast milk will continue to label and initially store their milk on the unit. Milk-room workers will pick up deposits and store the expressed breast milk in the new milk bar room located next to the unit.
When the Stollery NICU Milk Bar receives a request for milk, a staff member will thaw the exact amount of milk and add the specific amount and type of fortifier before portioning it into the individual syringes or bottles for feeding. Milk room workers will deliver prepared feeds back to fridges on the unit for nurses to administer to patients.
A dedicated, centralized milk handling room is the gold standard for ensuring quality, standardization and safety in infant nutrition within pediatric hospitals. A similar milk room is set to open at Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary this summer.
Alberta Health Services provides a range of healthcare services for more than four million adults and children living in Alberta. Our mission is to provide excellent, patient-focused healthcare that is accessible and sustainable for all Albertans. Our current focus is on reducing emergency department wait times, improving EMS response times, increasing access to surgeries, and improving patient flow.
