We are humbled to share recent photos of our recent trip to Puerto Rico.
Hurricane María made landfall on Sept. 20, 2017, devastating the island and leaving estimates of at least seventy-five percent of the power grid down. San Juan’s Ashford Presbyterian Community Hospital was impacted by these power outages, leaving critical NICU patients at risk.
“Like many people around the world, we were impacted by the early reports coming out of Puerto Rico. Once we heard that the children’s hospital was affected, we immediately reached out and offered our help,” shared Chelly Snow, COO and Co-Founder of LactaLogics. “Coincidently, we just completed our second human milk processing pilot run, successfully creating both our 18 and 20 calorie 100% human milk-based products. We had food-grade, commercially sterile, and shelf-stable human milk on hand.”
Ashford Presbyterian Community Hospital lost its entire supply of pasteurized milk. The loss of electricity meant the loss of refrigeration, putting their premature infants at risk.
With the supply chain disrupted, we knew the only option was to deliver the human milk to the NICU ourselves.
We boarded a flight to Puerto Rico with 10 cases of shelf-stable human milk, delivering it to the hospital in a critical moment of need.
“Our goal is to get all premature infants on an exclusive human milk diet. This mission becomes even more important during times like these,” continued Snow. “It was a huge honor to be able to serve these babies in this small way.”
Hospital staff has since shared that the milk did indeed fill a critical gap. Not only did babies in the NICU at Ashford and other surrounding hospitals successfully use our milk, but at-risk infants who received our human milk-based products as prescribed by their doctor.
We look forward to continuing to serve hospitals like Ashford Presbyterian Community Hospital and other NICU across the world.
