Drop by Drop: How Ankit Srivastava and the Amaara Human Milk Bank Team Are Transforming Newborn Care in India

In 2015, businessman-philanthropist Ankit Srivastava walked through a crowded neonatal-intensive-care unit (NICU) in Delhi and felt his heart sink. Incubators held rows of premature babies—some weighing barely a kilogram—who were being fed formula because their mothers could not lactate after difficult deliveries. “It felt wrong that a temporary shortage of breast-milk could decide whether a child thrives or struggles,” he later said. That visceral reaction drew Srivastava into a coalition of neonatologists, lactation counsellors, engineers, and public-health advocates determined to change the equation.

Their shared resolve soon gave birth to the Breast Milk Foundation (BMF) and its flagship programme, Amaara Human Milk Bank—India’s first not-for-profit network dedicated to collecting, pasteurising, and distributing donor breast-milk to sick and pre-term infants. Srivastava, always quick to note that he is one of several founders, credits an “all-hands-on-deck spirit” for everything Amaara has achieved: “Without the clinicians who wrote our safety protocols, the technologists who built the labs, and the mothers who donate their surplus milk, none of this would exist.”

Amaara opened its inaugural bank in 2016 inside Fortis La Femme Hospital, New Delhi. Each batch of donated milk is rigorously screened for pathogens, gently pasteurised, analysed for protein and fat, and stored at −20 °C until prescribed for a vulnerable newborn. Within twelve months the bank had already supplied life-saving milk to more than 500 infants.

Expansion followed quickly. A second facility launched in Bengaluru in 2017, and today a web of temperature-controlled courier routes links roughly 70 hospitals across Delhi–NCR and southern India. So far, Amaara has registered close to 190 volunteer mothers, processed over 4,000 litres of milk, and benefited an estimated 7,000 newborns, many of whom might otherwise have faced life-threatening complications.

Amaara’s quality chain rivals that of any modern biobank. Cold-chain logistics maintain sub-zero temperatures from donor pickup to NICU hand-over; ISO-class clean rooms and triple-validated pasteurisation cycles safeguard against contamination; and real-time nutrient analysers give neonatologists precise data to personalise feeds for babies who need extra protein or fat. The result is a product as safe as it is nourishing—an essential standard for infants whose immune systems are still fragile.

Statistics, however impressive, only hint at the project’s impact. One neonatologist recalls an 800-gram infant whose intestines had nearly shut down. After switching the baby to donor milk, the medical team saw the abdomen settle within 48 hours, and the tiny patient went home on exclusive breast-feeds three weeks later. Tales like this ripple through maternity wards, transforming once-skeptical families into passionate donor-recruitment ambassadors.

Amaara’s influence extends well past hospital walls. Weekly awareness drives normalise conversations about lactation and bodily autonomy, offering mothers free pump rentals and nutrition guidance so that surplus milk becomes a community asset rather than medical waste. Meanwhile, state-run NICUs now routinely requisition donor milk during shortages, integrating it into standard neonatal protocols. The project’s de-identified data—generated from thousands of pasteurisation cycles—feed into Indian and international studies that are shaping emerging national guidelines on newborn nutrition.

Looking forward, the founding team plans to seed mini-banks in tier-two cities and roll out tele-lactation services so rural mothers can receive expert counselling without travelling long distances. Pilot trials are already linking each milk pouch to a QR code that delivers real-time nutrient information straight to paediatricians’ smartphones.

“When a stranger’s milk saves a stranger’s child, society itself grows healthier,” Srivastava says. “Our dream is an India where every newborn—no matter how tiny or how poor—begins life with nature’s most powerful medicine.”

In a country where roughly 3.5 million babies are born pre-term each year, Amaara’s blend of science, empathy, and community spirit offers a scalable, sustainable path forward. Drop by drop, pouch by pouch, Ankit Srivastava and his fellow founders are proving that a few millilitres of shared humanity can tip the balance of survival for India’s most vulnerable citizens—one baby, one future at a time.