IIFA resolution 264 (9/26) on feeding premature infants with milk from known and unknown donors

A collective resolution of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy on feeding premature infants with donated breast milk, weighing the infant's need against the rules of milk kinship. ¹

The Academy's council considered the research and deliberations on feeding premature infants with milk from known or unknown donors. ¹

The Academy reaffirmed its resolution 6 (6/2) on milk banks, and defined suckling as a woman's milk reaching the stomach of a child in its first two years, whether from the breast or poured into the mouth or nose. ¹ It defined a premature infant as one born before the thirty-seventh week of pregnancy, and resolved that feeding a child is a duty on its family that is stronger still for a premature child because of its need, so the lawful means of feeding it must be attended to. ¹ It allowed donors to stipulate that no information about them be published, a condition that must be honoured; required companies making medicines from donor milk for premature infants to let the infants' families know who the donors are, to preserve the rules of kinship; called on the authorities to regulate milk donation; and recommended that health authorities encourage wet-nursing initiatives. ¹

The International Islamic Fiqh Academy, an organ of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, adopted this as resolution 264 at its 26th session in Doha (6–10 Dhu al-Qa'da 1446, 4–8 May 2025), and published it on iifa-aifi.org. ¹ The museum records this text as a historical document attributed to the body or scholar that issued it; it issues no ruling of its own.