Adding light: From a fragile beginning to giving life to others

In cases of severe allergic reactions, the immediate availability of life-saving medical equipment can make the difference between tragedy and a miracle.

Meet Tel Aviv–based stand-up comedian couple Almog Shor and Roi Tzabari. Last March, when Almog was just 24 weeks into her first pregnancy, her water broke and she was hospitalized. “From the very first moment, when my water broke so early, I realized that I had no control over the situation,” Almog recalls. “But I made a point of staying optimistic, keeping positive energy and complete faith that everything would be okay, even though there was no clear timeline for when I would give birth. At the hospital they told me it could take a day, two days, a week - some women even broke records and stayed there for three months,” she says, describing the hospitalization with characteristic optimism.

About a month later, at 27 weeks of pregnancy, Almog was informed that labor had begun and she was rushed for an emergency cesarean section. “That day I spent several hours in the delivery room, and at a certain point a surgeon came to take me into emergency surgery. My mindset was that everything would be fine, I simply couldn’t imagine a scenario where something would go wrong.”

At the end of the surgery, baby Kochav (“Star”) was born into the world weighing just 990 grams. Immediately after birth, Kochav was transferred from the operating room to the neonatal intensive care unit. “Roi and I decided we didn’t want to know the baby’s gender throughout the pregnancy, we wanted it to be a surprise. We thought of a name for a boy and a name for a girl. I won’t reveal the girl’s name,” Almog shares.

“Before the birth, we heard from parents who had chosen a name, but once the baby was born they felt it didn’t suit them. When Kochav was born, he was connected to so many tubes and we couldn’t even hold him. I said to Roi, how can we give him a name when I haven’t even touched him?”

But the signs Almog and Roi received sealed the little preemie’s fate and his name. “While he was in the NICU, the doctors and nurses called him Kochav without knowing that was the name we had been considering. I even have a message from a doctor who wrote to me, ‘I’m going to visit the star.’ I told myself that this is the sign. That’s his name.”

“A month after Kochav was discharged from the hospital, I noticed I was storing a lot of milk in the freezer we bought especially for this purpose, while he was receiving fresh milk,” Almog explains. “There’s no reason for the milk to sit in the freezer if it can help babies who need it, just as my Kochav did. Since then, every time the freezer fills up, I donate the milk to the milk bank.”

Almog shared the entire donation process on her social media platforms, where it garnered tens of thousands of views. “I documented the donation process on my social media, and I receive quite a few messages from women who went and donated because of me and because raising awareness inspired them. It’s incredibly moving. Breast milk is so important for babies, especially premature infants, it’s the most amazing thing they can receive when they’re born.”

Summing up the turbulent, complex, and deeply emotional period she experienced with Roi and little Kochav, Almog says: “We had so many moments of happiness during this time. It’s in the small things, like the day they moved Kochav from the incubator to an open crib, or when a nurse told me he fed from a bottle that day and not through a tube. These were small things, but at the time they felt huge. One of the happiest moments I remember most is the decision to donate my excess milk to the MDA National Human Milk Bank. It’s something I never thought about before, I wasn’t even sure if I would breastfeed or pump. I just went with the flow, and the thought of how many premature babies I can help is truly overwhelming and incredibly moving.”

About 10% of all births worldwide are premature. In Israel, approximately 15,000 premature babies are born each year. A portion of them are born with very low birth weight, under 1.5 kilograms. According to Ministry of Health guidelines, any baby born before 34 weeks of pregnancy or weighing under 1.5 kilograms must receive breast milk from the mother, or if the mother cannot produce milk from MDA’s National Human Milk Bank.

“Breast milk has many advantages,” explains Dr. Sharon Bransburg-Tzabari, director of MDA’s National Human Milk Bank. “It contains numerous antibodies and immunity components that protect the baby from illness and help build the immune system, as well as active components that support brain and body development - processes that are especially critical for premature and sick infants. These components are absent from infant formula; exposure to formula can lead to severe intestinal illness and developmental harm. Breast milk, like a unit of blood, is a human tissue containing a wide range of unique, active maternal components with no substitute, most of which survive even the processing stages at the milk bank. Therefore, donations from breastfeeding women are vital for these infants and preemies.”

MDA’s National Human Milk Bank, located at MDA’s Blood Services Center in Ramla, was established in 2018 as a joint initiative of MDA and the Ministry of Health. The milk bank collects, tests, and supplies approximately 160 liters of breast milk each month to hundreds of premature infants in neonatal units across the country, meeting the highest safety standards.

Breast milk donors must meet specific criteria to ensure both donor eligibility and the safety of the milk. These requirements include viral infection screening through blood tests conducted by MDA Blood Services, along with additional conditions that ensure the donor’s ongoing suitability and the safety of the expressed milk, while also confirming that the donor’s own baby has an adequate supply. Donated milk undergoes a lengthy process before reaching infants in need and must therefore be expressed and stored under optimal conditions.