- Following simple guidelines ensures your breast milk will retain its nutritional content.bottle image by drjay from Fotolia.com
Pumping your breast milk has all sorts of undeniable practical and nutritional benefits for your baby, but let's face it: It can be a painful and tedious process. After putting all that work into filling your baby's bottles, the last thing you want is for the milk to go bad or lose its nutritional value. Several breastfeeding and health care organizations recommend following similar guidelines to make sure your milk remains healthy and safe from the time you pump it to the time you feed it to your baby. - You can store your breast milk in plastic or glass bottles with resealable tops, or in a heavy-duty bag that fits directly into a storage bottle. While some organizations might say it is alright to store your milk in a resealable plastic bag, the Centers for Disease Control recommends against it because the bag might leak. Use 2- to 4-ounce bottles to reduce waste, and label each container with the date so you can be sure to use the oldest bottles first. You can freeze milk you don't plan to use right away, but the Centers for Disease Control recommends against mixing frozen milk with fresh milk.
- The amount of time you can keep your pumped milk depends on how you store it. Milk can be kept, covered, at room temperature, for 6 to 8 hours, according to the Centers for Disease Control. You can keep it for up to 24 hours in an insulated cooler bag with ice packs in contact with the storage bottles at all times, 5 days in a refrigerator, 2 weeks in the freezer compartment of a refrigerator, 3 to 6 months in a freezer compartment of a refrigerator that has separate doors, or 6 to 12 months in a chest or upright freezer.
- Don't thaw your breast milk in the microwave. It is much more safe to thaw it in the refrigerator overnight, or, if you're pressed for time, put it under cool running water, according to the Centers for Disease Control and La Leche League. If the milk gets too hot, the nutritional content will be compromised. Once your milk is thawed, do not refreeze it. Don't worry if the milk has separated into a milk layer and a cream layer. This is normal for human milk. Simply mix it up before feeding it to your baby. You can keep thawed breast milk in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours, according to La Leche League.
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