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EnglishWhat Is the Rogers Hixon Ontario Human Milk Bank?
Updated
The Rogers Hixon Ontario Human Milk Bank is a Canadian human milk bank that supplies high-quality pasteurized donor human milk to hospitalized infants across Ontario. It serves hospitals, screens prospective milk donors, and conducts research on donor milk safety. If you are a parent, clinician, or potential donor looking for information on donating or using donor human milk, this is the organization to start with.
What the organization does
The milk bank describes its mission as offering "hope, healing and health" by supplying pasteurized donor human milk to hospitalized infants across Ontario who need it most. Its work falls into three main areas:
- Donating human milk — screening and supporting milk donors
- Using donor human milk — helping hospitals understand how and why donor milk matters
- Research — making donor human milk safer through ongoing study and care
Who it serves
According to the organization's own figures, its reach extends beyond Ontario:
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Hospitals receiving donor milk | 52 across Ontario and the Atlantic provinces |
| Prospective donors screened since 2013 | 8,500+ |
| Donor milk pasteurized per week | 300 litres |
| Low-birth-weight infants in Ontario who could benefit each year | 1,500+ |
| Research papers published | 50+ |
The focus is on vulnerable preterm and low-birth-weight infants in hospital settings, not general retail or home use.
How donor milk reaches infants
The pathway described on the site runs from donor to hospital:
- A prospective donor is screened.
- Donated milk is collected and pasteurized by the milk bank team.
- Pasteurized donor milk is distributed to participating hospitals.
- Hospitalized infants who need it receive the milk.
The site notes that 300 litres can be pasteurized in a single week, which gives a sense of the processing capacity behind that pathway.
Donor perspectives
The milk bank publishes donor stories that illustrate why people donate. One donor, Tracy, describes the experience this way: "It fills my heart to know that my oversupply—this unexpected and beautiful gift—could possibly help other moms, babies and families across Canada."
Recent donor spotlights include:
- Adhiyat's story — after breastfeeding challenges, she transitioned to exclusively pumping and became aware of both the privilege of having milk to share and the difficulties many families face.
- Alina's story — her son Michael was born with congenital heart disease; pumping became one of the few things she felt she could do to help, and having more milk than he needed led her to donate.
- Meghal's story — she became a donor in memory of her second daughter and in gratitude for the donor milk that helped her son, born at 27 weeks in 2025.
These accounts are useful if you are considering donating and want a realistic sense of the motivations and circumstances involved.
Where to go next
The site organizes its main actions around three entry points:
- Learn how to donate — for those with milk to share
- Learn about using donated human milk — for hospitals and clinicians
- Learn more about our research — for those interested in donor milk safety
If your question is about whether your hospital participates, whether you qualify as a donor, or how donor milk is used clinically, those three sections are the relevant starting points. The site does not publish pricing or access details in the material reviewed here, so specific eligibility and logistics are best confirmed directly with the milk bank.