David, Daniel, and Diego were born at 32 weeks via caesarean section in Cuba’s eastern province of Granma—they weighed between 1520 and 1780 grams each. Their mother, Dayanis Diaz, wasn’t producing enough milk for her triplets and just 24 hours after birth, they were being fed with pasteurized milk from the hospital’s breast milk bank. For a month, the three Ds were nourished with this donated milk until Dayanis started lactating suffi ciently, at which point her own milk supplemented that from the milk bank. Shortly thereafter, the triplets were discharged, weighing in at 2500 grams. “Every day I give thanks for the patience, understanding and support of the milk bank team,” says Dayanis. In Santiago de Cuba, Jorge Rodriguez was born prematurely, with low birth weight, and was in critical condition for the fi rst several days. Tragically, his mother died giving birth and his neonatology team began nourishing him with milk from the local milk bank. After three months, he was healthy enough to go home “thanks to the breast milk bank and the voluntary spirit of the donors. We are very grateful,” says Jorge’s father. Arlet Tito gave birth to twins at the tender age of 14. One of the babies died and the other, weighing just 900 grams, suffered from prenatal asphyxia. Traumatized, Arlet wouldn’t nurse her surviving son, who began receiving donated milk from the breast milk bank in her province of Guantanamo. As her son gained weight, the bank’s specialized breastfeeding support team began talking with Arlet about the benefi ts and importance of nursing. The message hit home, and she eventually became one of the banks most prolifi c donors—depositing up to seven liters a month—as well as a health promoter, giving talks about the benefi ts of breastfeeding to expectant mothers in the maternity wards of Guantanamo’s Agostinho Neto Provincial ClinicalSurgical Teaching Hospital. The three D’s, Jorge, Arlet and her son and many other mothers and children like them, are benefi ciaries of Cuba’s Human Breast Milk Bank program, administered by the country’s Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP, the Spanish acronym) with fi nancial support from UNICEF and other international organizations, and technical and training support from Brazil’s Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ). Part of the multi-year, intersectoral program entitled Support for the Fight Against Anemia in Vulnerable Groups, the milk banks are one of the pillars of the strategy to combat anemia, but also to raise awareness and promote breastfeeding among new mothers.