Providing newborn bundles of joy with vital breastmilk when their mothers are unwell or struggling to produce their own, is all in a day’s work for Maudie Smith, a nurse has for 20 years helped countless babies have a healthy start to life.
Cape Town, South Africa (27 March 2025) – Our rainbow nation boasts a melting pot of incredible people and extraordinary heroes. We’re not referring to the cape-wearing kind but rather those who resemble everyday people like you and me, working silently in the background to touch lives in ways that truly matter.
In this story, we celebrate the heroes of Groote Schuur Hospital’s milk bank. One such heroine is Nurse Maudie Smith who has dedicated 39 years to the hospital – 20 of which were mostly spent in the milk kitchen where staff store expressed breastmilk.
While most of this milk goes to the moms’ own babies, some of the extra milk is donated to be used towards babies whose mothers cannot provide milk.
If you know anything about babies, you’ll know that breastmilk comes highly recommended, especially in the first six months of their lives. But in many cases, some mommies need a little support in making sure their little ones get all these nutrients.
“If the baby is too small or mommy’s sick, or mommy can’t get to the hospital, then that baby qualifies for the donor milk.
“We used to buy expressed milk for our babies, which was actually really expensive. But because of our efforts in encouraging moms who are here to donate their milk, we haven’t had to buy for the last three years,” shares Smith.
Smith explained that has been made possible by the nurses in the maternity wards who talk to the moms, educating them about the importance of breastmilk, and encouraging them to donate their milk if they have extra.
“Once I get the milk it gets frozen. It gets defrosted and measured out as needed, but first gets pasturized and samples are sent off for testing before we feed it to the babies.”
Making sure babies are fed and cooing happily is all in a day’s work for Smith and she absolutely adores it – making her pending retirement a rather bittersweet reality.
“I just love this job. I have a passion for it because it makes you feel good when you can help a little baby start the journey of life and see it go home healthy, because it’s had the right nutrition and help. I’m really going to miss it.”
Heroes of Groote Schuur is a Facebook page dedicated to highlighting the amazing people who work or visit the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town.
The page is highlighting all the incredible working being done by the staff who keep everything running smoothly. Heroes featured on the page often have the most interesting jobs, especially now during the pandemic when so much was up in the air.
Sources: Heroes of Groote Schuur
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