All About Milk

Breastfeeding wasn't as easy as I thought. I now know, it is an art.


The one that confused my husband and I was the storage and handling of the expressed breast milk. So, here is what I have gathered from many experts, and now put in a page for my future reference:

Type	Temperature	No. of Hours
Freshly Expressed Breast Milk	Room Temperature	10 Hours
Freshly Expressed Breast Milk	Cooler with icepacks	8 Hours
Freshly Expressed Breast Milk	Refrigerator If milk has been stored in the cooler pack prior to this, storage time may decrease.	8 Days
Freshly Expressed breast milk	Self Contained Freezer If it was previously refrigerated, the storage time may vary.	3-6 Months

The advice that was given to us was to pump after baby feeds to make sure that the breast is empty, signalling the brain to make more milk. When supply was low initially, all I could express was 10ml - 20ml each time. The question I asked myself was:

• Should I store it individually or can I wait for the next feed and combine it?The latest research now shows that you may pump directly into already refrigerated or cooled milk as long as the milk is added within 24 hours of the first milk expressed. You should then follow the storage recommendations based upon the time and date of the first milk expressed. You can also pump directly into milk that has been stored at room temperature as long as you do so within 10 hours. This milk would need to be used. 

• Must I buy specialised milk bags, Can I store them in normal sealed bags? Milk storage bags that are designed specifically for human milk (see CSF milkbags). They are pre-sterilized and are thicker (2-ply), coated with polyethylene, and lined with nylon which prevents the fat from adhering to the sides. Hard plastic containers of any kind are also good choices for both refrigeration and freezing. Other milkbags, sold specifically as bottle liners, are not as durable, making them an unacceptable alternative when freezing the milk as the seams may burst during the freezing process perhaps causing a leak during thawing. Also, one study found that there was a 60% decrease in the milk's antibodies and a loss of fat that adhered to the sides of these bags. If this type of bag is still chosen, the milk can be better protected by placing the liner bags in a larger gallon size freezer bag or in a hard plastic container.
  When milk freezes it expands, so it is necessary to leave about an inch at the top of the container to allow for expansion. For this reason, bottle caps or container lids should not be tightened until the milk is completely frozen.
  
  

There was also the issue of post feeding. Baby A used to finished her milk at one go, so there was no problem. As she grew older, she became fussier. So, the question I had to ask was, 

• Can I keep it for the next feed or must I throw my precious breast milk away? Based on this study, which admittedly needs to be done on a larger scale, it would seem to me that expressed breast milk, fed to the baby, partially consumed, and then refrigerated, could be used for one more feeding no more than four hours later.

• Can I reheat previously heated breast milk? You should not reheat breast milk more than twice, reheating breast milk can cause the growth of harmful bacteria and can make baby sick.When heating breast milk, never bring the breast milk to boiling point as this will destroy its quality.

What I usually do now is to let Baby have the freshest and most recent expressed milk (I try not to refrigerate it) because the composition of the milk is always changing as Baby A grows. (How amazing out body works!) Hence, its always best to give her the freshest and the best! 

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