How to store your breast milk safely?

The old saying goes that there's no use crying over spilled milk. But when it comes to milk for your child, it's a pity to lose any.

With some good planning, you can avoid wasting any of the breast milk you've expressed to feed your baby or toddler. And if you are receiving your supply from a breast milk donor bank, learning to store milk is the key to ensuring your little one is fed.

What are the advantages of storing breast milk?

If you're pumping or hand-expressing your breast milk, knowing how to store the milk you get is helpful. Having your milk stored means that you have some available to give to your child when he or she has his or her next feeding. And it's helpful to know how to store your milk to keep and retain its nutrients and immune-system stimulators.

Even once you've depleted your colostrum in your initial feedings, breast milk is just as nutritious as formula when it comes to nutrition, particularly in your baby's first half-year of life. If you can't make breast milk independently, breast milk banks are a useful tool that gathers, screens, stores, processes, and distributes milk to needy parents.

How do you safely store breast milk?

Breast milk can remain at room temperature, in a refrigerator, or in a freezer. How long you can store your milk safely will depend on its position and the type of containers you use.

Generally, you'll need to store 2 to 4 ounces of breast milk each time. That is typically how much milk your baby will drink at one time. Having a smaller amount of 1 to 2 ounces on hand can be useful when giving a smaller snack or having babies under 6 weeks old.

Store milk in these containers:

Glass is the preferred container for breast milk storage. It keeps the milk's elements in the best condition. Glass does shatter, though, so remember that a few day-care centers will not permit this.
Hard plastic containers are the second best option for storing breast milk. Choose bpa-free, opaque, or clear plastic. You should never use bpa-containing bottles due to their chemical and microplastic composition. You can determine if a bottle has bpa if it is marked with the recycle symbol number 7.
Nursing bags or breast milk freezer bags are ideal for freezer storage. Although freezer bags save space and are convenient, they also have the greatest potential to leak. To prevent damage, put your bags in rigid plastic containers or double-bag if they're a more flimsy storage bag.

When you store milk, it is critical that you mark each container with a smudge-proof marker, writing the date and the volume of milk in each container. Use the oldest first to keep your stocks fresh, not expired or sour. In case you are delivering stored milk to childcare, you also mark the container with your child's name to prevent confusion.

How long does breast milk last?

Having small quantities is handy, as you can easily heat them up and might reduce the quantity that you waste. This is specifically relevant when dealing with milk that you've frozen and then thawed out: milk that's thawed or warmed out loses much less shelf life than if it's kept refrigerated. Once you take it out of a cold place, the clock begins ticking.

Milk can be kept:

Up to four days in a typical refrigerator.
Up to three to four months within a typical refrigerator freezer.
Up to six to 12 months within a standalone deep freezer.

Within an insulated cooler bag with ice packs for up to 24 hours during transportation.

You don't want to keep milk in the door of your freezer or refrigerator; instead, place it at the back to prevent frequent exposure to changes in temperature. Another aspect to keep in mind when freezing is that sometimes your milk will appear differently than you anticipated.

It's natural for stored milk to separate into a milk and cream layer. It is also typical for breast milk to be of various colors from yellow to yellow-orange and even green. Your breast milk color can vary depending on what you consume and drink and the medicines you take while breastfeeding. If you ever wonder about the color of your stored milk, a lactation consultant can guide you on what is okay to use.

The length of time you can store breast milk at room temperature is determined by how warm the room is and if the milk has been freshly pumped or expressed or if it's been frozen in the past and then thawed and/or warmed up for feeding.

Freshly expressed or pumped at room temperature (77 degrees Fahrenheit, 25 degrees Celsius), breast milk is best used:

Within four hours.
If it has been refrigerated or frozen and thawed, within two hours.

You never want to store milk at temperatures above 77 f (25 c) due to the possibility of bacterial growth. Once your milk is frozen and thawed, you never want to refreeze the milk.

How to thaw frozen breast milk?

A child can drink cold or room-temperature milk, but they might prefer it if it's warm. You never want to microwave or use a stovetop or oven directly when heating milk. A microwave does not warm breast milk uniformly, and it can scald your baby if it is overheated. Heating milk too rapidly or at high heat will also ruin vital proteins and vitamins present in milk. Sometimes, it can also make the bottle burst if heated for a long time. Also, never heat your milk to a hot temperature or boil it.

To thaw and defrost frozen breast milk, begin by placing the container under warm running water for a couple of minutes. You can also heat a pan of water on the stovetop on low-to-medium heat, take it off the heat after about a minute or two, and then submerge your freezer bag in the pan of warm water for a few minutes.

When warming, you'll want to ensure that the water won't rise above the top of the bag or touch the seal so that you don't contaminate anything. If your milk appears cloudy upon warming, there's been a leak and the milk is spoiled.

You may also use a bottle warmer if you have one.

After warming the milk, mix the milk and separate cream layers by swirling them together. Check the temperature of the milk by placing a few drops on your wrist — when it feels only warm, not hot, the milk is ready to use for feeding.

If your baby doesn't consume the entire container, you can use leftover milk within two hours of heating. Two hours later, you should discard any remaining previously thawed milk.