Pakistani breast milk bank closes after Islamic clerics withdraw approval

Bottles of donated breast milk at the San Juan de Dios hospital in Guatemala City, Guatemala. There are 750 milk banks in nearly 70 countries worldwide. Photograph: Saul Martinez/Reuters

When he heard a hospital in Karachi was setting up a milk bank for babies, the news was a “huge relief” to Mohammad Munawwar.

With his wife very sick and their premature son Ayan in hospital, the 52-year-old father had had to collect milk five or six times a day from different female relatives who were breastfeeding their own babies.