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A first-of-its-kind piece of equipment in the Valley will benefit Community Regional Medical Center’s neonatal intensive care unit, its patients and their mothers. 

A breast milk analyzer machine, which costs $50,000, was supported by a donation from the Fansler Foundation. The machine analyzes the components of milk in as little as one minute to measure the amount of nutrients a baby is receiving. 

“We’re hugely grateful to the Fansler Foundation. This is a gift that is going to keep on giving to so many babies,” said Anand Rajani, medical director of the NICU at Community Regional Medical Center.

Though the technology is not new, it has become more affordable, bringing down the barrier of acquisition. 

“That’s a quantum leap for us in the NICU,” Rajani said. 

Rajani said the addition of the breast milk analyzer allows medical staff to customize the nutrition plan of each baby.

“This is a very expensive piece of equipment that very few hospitals in the state even have access to,” said Amanda Juarez, pediatric clinical nutrition manager at Community Regional Medical Center. 

She believes the hospital will reduce the amount of patients who go home underweight. 

Rajani said having a more specified and targeted approach to nutrition in the NICU helps cut down on waste and cost. 

“We are not making families purchase things that they don’t need, yet giving them things that are better and are really going to help,” Rajani said. 

Donations like ones that helped provide the breast milk analyzer are helping materialize that goal, he said. 

All premature babies – the majority demographic of NICU patients – are in need of high-quality nutrition. Giving optimal nutrition helps doctors and nurses replicate optimal growth that the babies would otherwise have in mothers’ wombs. 

The best indication of nutrition comes from the mother’s breast milk, which is why the machine is so valuable.