A pasteurisation machine for breast milk | THE ECONOMIST

FOR the feeding of babies, everyone agrees that “breast is best”. It is not, however, always convenient. Textile workers in Bangladesh, who are mostly women, are entitled to four months’ maternity leave. Once this is over, they often end up parking their children with relatives when they are at work. Those with refrigerators at home can use breast pumps to express milk before they go on shift, and leave it behind to chill. But fridges are expensive, and many do not own one. Unchilled milk goes off within a couple of hours so the inevitable outcome for fridgeless mothers and their babies is the use of infant formula.

A chance meeting in a coffee shop in Dhaka may, though, have helped with this problem…