A NEW mother has hit out at maternity staff after they threw away 30 pints of breast milk in storage for her premature son.

Health care support worker Ruth Snape, 29, expressed the milk every three hours after Jakoby arrived nine weeks early on November 25 at Burnley’s newborn centre.

The milk was fed through a tube to Jakoby who was too weak to suckle properly, and Mrs Snape was keen to give him the best start possible.

As too much milk had been collected to store in the freezer at their home in Feniscowles, Blackburn, Mrs Snape and her husband Andy, 36, asked to keep some in the hospital’s freezer.

But when Mrs Snape’s husband Andy went to collect the milk last week, he was told it had been mistakenly thrown away.

Mrs Snape said: “I was up during the night expressing the milk to be able to give Jakoby the best start possible, expecially as he was premature.

“I wanted him to build up his immunity, but the hours I spent have been wasted.

“We were told that it was a lack of communication that has led to this happening, and we feel completely let down. It shouldn’t have happened.

“As time goes on, your body produces less milk, and eventually he will have to go on to formula milk, but because of this, he will go on about a month earlier than he would have done.”

Mrs Snape said she was entering a formal complaint.

Susan Ainsworth, matron for neonatal care for East Lancs Hospitals Trust, said: “While there is no obligation to store breast milk, most units do offer this facility so that tube-fed babies can be fed with their mother’s milk.

“The neonatal intensive care unit has large freezers, but cannot keep frozen breast milk indefinitely.

“I have reminded staff that, as a matter of courtesy, they should contact parents before disposing of frozen milk.”