Breastmilk Containers and Storage
If you are pumping milk for your baby to eat at a later date or time than the day you are pumping, you will need to store your milk in proper containers and using proper methods. Breast milk can go bad, just like all milks can. Furthermore, it isn’t pasteurized. So proper storage is key to providing your child with the nutrition that breast milk can give.
The containers you use for your breast milk should be sterile. There are sterile, sealable, plastic bags out in the market that are used specifically for storing breast milk. These bags are meant for long term storage, and can only be used once. When you thaw the frozen breast milk, you will have to throw the bag away.
The next containers for long term storage are sterile, air tight, glass jars. There are some available specifically for breast milk. Other mothers choose to use air tight glass jars that can be bought from other stores and to sterilize the jar at home. Usually, sterilizing an object means keeping the object in boiling water for twenty to thirty minutes.
Plastic is not recommended for long term storage, but it is preferred over glass for short term storage, especially for storage at room temperature. This is because the good qualities of breast milk tend to stick to glass more than plastic if the storage is short term or at room temperature. The kind of plastic containers you should use are the clear plastic containers that you can see all the way through, similar to glass containers. Some mothers choose to store their breast milk directly in baby bottles made from this hard clear plastic. This makes it easy to feed the baby, and some say takes up less space in the refrigerator.
When storing milk, it is recommended that you have a storage schedule or system. Mark the milk bottles or storage containers with the date that the expressed breast milk was pumped. That way you know by when to use the milk, and no milk will go to waste. If you’ll be freezing the milk, it can be stored in a chest freezer or deep freezer for up to ten months. Some people say you can store it for twelve, but ten is safer.
Freezing the milk in a self contained freezer unit of the refrigerator, you can store it for up to four months. Again, most people say six months is still fine, but since freezer doors do get opened and closed, this time can vary. The freezer compartment inside your refrigerator, on the other hand can store breast milk for up to two weeks. The refrigerator itself can store breast milk for up to eight days. Just be sure you store the milk at the back of the refrigerator, and not by the door. The door of your refrigerator usually doesn’t stay too cold, and this isn’t ideal for breast milk.
If you are expressing breast milk for storage, store it right away. If you are at work and are expressing there, keep a small cooler with ice packs or ice beside you in which you can place the breast milk in. If this is done, storage time may vary as coolers are not as effective as refrigerators or freezers for storage.
Freshly expressed breast milk can be kept at room temperature for up to ten hours at 19-22 degrees Celsius. Warmer than that (around 25 degrees) and it can only be stored for up to six hours. So if you are expressing with the intent to feed your baby with the expressed milk later on that day or at night, you can keep the milk at room temperature. If you are around, though, it is best that you nurse your baby yourself.
Ideally, fresh breast milk is best for your baby. Some studies have shown that breast milk loses some of its nutritive qualities when it is frozen. Other studies however have shown that refrigerated breast milk contains fewer bacteria than fresh breast milk. In either case, stored breast milk still has more nutrition and immunizing factors than any formula milk available.
Page Two: Feeding Stored Expressed Breast Milk (Breastmilk Containers and Storage continued)
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