Giving Life a Chance

Human Milk Flash Heating

PASTEURISATION

What is PiAstra?

PiAstra is a device developed by a team of researchers for monitoring the process of pasteurisation of Donor Human Milk (DHM). A printer is attached to the control unit allowing the print-out of the temperature curve; pasteurisation summary; and bottle and label lids.

Why use PiAstra?

Human Milk provides optimal nutrition for all infants. For low birthweight infants especially, it is personalised medication as these infants are at great risk of developing necrotising enterocolitis, a very serious condition of the gut, if they are fed anything other than breastmilk. There are occasions when some mothers may not receive sufficient lactation support to help them produce sufficient milk in the first few days after delivery. In these cases, donated human milk can be critical to help protect the infant’s gut and strengthen their immune system.

BUT international guidelines recommend that all donated human milk must be pasteurised before it is fed to infants.

ENTER PiAstra: A portable / safe / reliable/ cost efficient way of pasteurising breastmilk at minimum cost to make access to donor human milk (DHM) possible.

What makes PiAstra so special compared with other DHM pasteurisers?

Environmentally friendly

Uses minimal electricity and a gas cooker can be used for emergencies

Modular, easy to repair. Only the module that is defective is repaired.

Uses minimal amount of water which can be re-used with repeated cycles

Small volumes making it ideal as an entry point pasteuriser for new Human Milk Bank (HMB) start-ups.

Portable

Affordable

OPERATIONS MANUAL

Using the PiAstra is straightforward, it’s easy to monitor the process, the cycle is quick, efficient, and uses minimal water and electricity. In 20 minutes, you can have pasteurised milk ready to feed to an infant.

KZN urban public hospital
In low resource settings, PiAstra is perfectly suited for use where there are frequent water and electricity cuts as minimal amounts of water and electricity are required. Where freezer space is limited, donor milk can be pasteurised as needed as the cycle only takes about 20 minutes.

KZN rural public hospital
PiAstra is perfectly suited to small rural settings, it is compact, requires a small area to operate, is easily stored and operational costs are minimal. It negates the need to transport donor milk great distances to be pasteurised and sent back to outlining hospitals. Donor milk can be pasteurised onsite as and when required.

South African urban public hospital
There are substantial cost savings when setting up a donor milk bank using a PiAstra. Expensive industrial equipment is costly to operate and accessing repairs can be difficult.

South African rural hospital
I have used the PiAstra system in New Zealand for some years now. What a blessing it has been! We managed to supply the needs of 30 to 50 babies a month in our local neonatal and postnatal wards. It's quick and easy to set up and each process is over in 20 minutes. In small units, the PiAstra is more than adequate to process the needed supplies

Jacquie Nutt, IBCLC, New Zealand
Although we could only pasteurise small quantities at a time, the little machine coped well beyond expectations and kept up with the demand because of the speed of pasteurisation – 17 minutes per cycle. I found it to be very compact, and user friendly. It does not require a lot of space to operate and is easy to pack away when not needed. It comes with a label writer which prints summary reports and temperature curves for excellent record keeping.

Joelle Gibson, South Africa

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iThemba Lethu Innovation

PiAstra was originally distributed through the NPO, iThemba Lethu, however as the sales increased this was no longer feasible. A decision was taken to start an affiliated business company, iThemba Lethu Innovation, to handle sales. Profits are donated to the NPO.

What does PiAstra cost?

A full pasteurisation kit costs between $1,000 to $2,000, with the cost varying according to the income rating and location of countries requesting the PiAstra. iThemba Lethu Innovation is committed to making access to donor milk possible in the poorest of communities and will provide discounts depending on the needs of the institution or organisation. Hospitals can also reduce the price by purchasing their own stove, printer, labels, bottles, and icepacks.

Contact us using the button below and provide us with some information of where and how you plan to use PiAstra and we will send you with more details of the price.

Enquiry

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Provide us with information of where and how you plan to use PiAstra and we will provide you with more details of the price.

Training

For interest we also provide training for hospitals, community organisations to help them set up and run a human milk bank as well as providing training for health care workers to provide lactation support to mothers so they can successfully breastfeed their own infants without being reliant on donor human milk.

The PiAstra Team

Professor Anna Coutsoudis, academic and researcher in the Department of Paediatrics & Child Health, University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) won the GLaxoSmithKline/Save the Children’s Health Innovation Award for her ground-breaking work in Human Milk Banking in South Africa and for developing a low-cost, effective pasteurisation system for breastmilk. Up until now the prohibitive cost of commercial pasteurisers made roll -out of human milk banks to small rural hospitals and community organisations almost impossible. The Health Innovation Award enabled a significant scale up of milk banks working together with a non-profit organisation, iThemba Lethu Breastmilk Bank. iThemba Lethu was the first community-based human milk bank in South Africa and was started by Prof Coutsoudis in 2001. Shortly after winning the award the team realised that the original FoneAstra pasteurisation system developed by their collaborators (University of Washington, Seattle and PATH) was no longer practical for work in rural areas. Prof Coutsoudis called upon UKZN alumni, Philip Barlow and Noel Powell, (pictured with PiAstra) to brainstorm and come up with some alternatives. The system was based on the initial FoneAstra system developed by PATH and the University of Washington (Seattle), Computer Science and Engineering Department and HMBASA and we gratefully acknowledge these contributions.

Philip Barlow suggested using Raspberry Pi – off-the-shelf readily available technology with an easy- to- use touch screen. The resulting innovation is now called PiAstra and the cost is almost half the cost of the original FoneAstra and a fraction of the price of a commercial pasteuriser. The ‘funky’ concept, design and manufacture was made possible by using local expertise and industries who took on the challenge and delivered in record time.

Noel worked closely with Phil Barlow to develop the PiAstra and was the Project Manager until 2020.

Penny Reimers, a professional midwife and international board- certified lactation consultant who provides support to the Human Milk Bank and NICU staff to encourage lactation support for the mothers.