(ABC 6 News) – On Monday, Olmsted County announced it has a launched a new program to help reduce health disparities with infants and mothers.

The program was launched to help increase the amount of pasteurized donor human milk for breastfeeding and chest feeding families. There has been a shortage in donor breast milk available for people throughout the county as people have had to drive from town to town to get what the milk need.

Olmsted County officials are hopeful that providing safe, free donor milk will help families that are in desperate need of replenishing their own milk supply.

The milk is shipped from the Minnesota Milk Bank for Babies and sent through a rigorous testing process to ensure it’s safe for babies to consume.

“The reason why people might need to use this bridge bag and this human donor milk is that sometimes when an infant is born,” said Kristina Collins, Public Health Nurse Manager with Olmsted County. “They might have some medical conditions going on that they would need some extra nutritional and immunological support that this human donor milk, that human milk can provide.”

The program also provides education for families as well as peer counselors to help these families in need.