Guidelines For Storing Breast Milk at Home

 Choose Your Storage container

You can choose different types of containers to store your milk. You can store the extract milk in glass bottles, steel boxes, BPA-free plastic bottles and breast milk storage bags. However, we suggest that you store in glass and steel boxes as this is readily available at home.

Always Wash

Always wash your hands and clean your breast before pumping. This ensure there is no contamination to the milk.

If you are using breast pump to extract the breastmilk, ensure you sterilize the pump and the bottles before each extraction.

The breast pump and its supplies should be well dried to avoid any bacteria entering to the pump while extracting.

Pumping Milk

Pump the milk for about 10 mins on each side.

If you are using the same container for storage fill up-to ¾ of the bottle. However, if you are using a different storage container then let the milk collection bottle get full and then transfer it to the container up to ¾. Do not fill it to the rime as the milk needs space to expand when its frozen.

Freezing

Labeling your milk with date and time after collecting is very important. Once labeled immediately put in the deep freezer (-10 degree) and not on the door.

The date and time help you to decide the milk that needs to be used first on a first-in-first-out basis.

The frozen milk has a shelf life for up-to a year depending on the type of refrigerator that you have.

Below is the step to use the stored breastmilk

Take out the frozen bottle from the freezer.

Keep the bottle upright in a bowl of lukewarm water till it reaches room temperature. Once thawed, gently swirl the bottle (avoid vigorous shaking) in clockwise/anti-clockwise motion. Hold the bottle upright and shake it up/down motion.

Withdraw milk through a sterile syringe/measuring cup and feed the baby using a bottle, paladai, spoon, etc.

Unused milk in the bottle can be stored in the refrigerator (2°C – 8°C) for up to 24hrs from the time of opening the bottle.

Do not re-freeze under any circumstance.

Read the full blog at - General Guidelines For Storing Breast Milk at Home - NeoLacta Lifesciences