Development and Past Projects

In Development

Human milk hydrolysis for babies with inadequate gut function to support life in developing countries

Some babies are born with, or acquire after surgery, not enough gut length or function to absorb normal milk. We have been collaborating with Professor Kasper Hettinga at Waginengen university (The Netherlands) to make human milk more easily absorbed. Non-human milks are already available for this purpose—though too expensive for people in VietNam, and not available outside capital cities. Refinement of the current low tech process is planned for mid 2025.

Milk sharing, VietNam

A necessary part of the hydrolysis project above is pasteurisation of the final product. We explored milk banks in VietNam. These are stifled in government regulations & the cost of the final product is beyond most families' means for any length of time.

Since social media is already used for private sharing in VN, we have proposed publishing a review on safe sharing of human milk in various situations. Successful publication may improve wider and safer uptake of the ideas in VN.

We have developed a modification of high temperature short time pasteurisation for home use. It awaits refinement and a bacterial and viral “spiking” study to follow. However, we are not a research organisation and, if we are unable to stimulate interest from existing researchers, we will not spend donor money on this work. Although various researchers (Rohan Stanger & Emily Hoedt—from University of Newcastle) are willing to be involved, they need this funding.

We welcome any assistance or ideas.

Nursing NTGH VietNam

Discussions between Anh Nguyen, Jane Buckley (both of MESCH) and Danh Nguyen (Director of nursing NTGH) had initially been formulaic from Nguyen’s side. With Anh and Jane’s persistence and alternate suggestions, Nguyen elected to trial a change in handover in 4 wards until Tết (end of January). This has been very popular with the nursing staff and Nguyen spoke with Dr Thach about continuing and expanding it. He has agreed. Establishing rapport and finding meaningful ways of promoting the skills and self-belief of nurses will be a challenge in the existing system.