It so happens that my mother needs to leave for some time on an urgent matter, and leave it because of this, breast milk does not want at all. In such cases, it usually leaves the baby with expressed milk. However, you can store it in the refrigerator for no longer than 12 hours, even if all hygienic conditions are met. If the mother is absent longer, you can resort to freezing breast milk.
How to freeze breast milk?
First, you should start worrying about collecting milk in advance, if you plan to miss a few days. Calculate how many bottles the baby needs, taking into account the number of meals per day. For one day you will not have time to collect milk for 12-15 feedings. Therefore, start to decant for a week or two before the proposed trip. In this case, it is possible to gradually freeze breast milk, until the right amount is obtained.
Freezing breast milk is best in special containers or in bottles for feeding. The average portion should be 120-140 ml. To merge in one container a larger volume is not worth it, so that you do not have to pour out the precious liquid if the baby is satisfied before it empties the bottle.
Before freezing, the dishes must be thoroughly washed, sprinkled with boiling water and dried. When you pour milk from the pouring tank into the frost container, be sure to leave the airspace, because when milk is frozen, milk tends to expand.
Milk must first be cooled in a refrigerator and only then cleaned in the freezer. In the frozen bottle, you can gradually increase the expressed expressed milk, until the required amount is obtained. It can be refilled after pre-cooling. It will be more correct if the amount of milk added is smaller than that already available in the bottle. This is necessary in order that the frozen milk does not melt.
In addition, for each bottle or container with milk, you need to paste a label with a written date, so that you do not get confused and do not
It is important not only to properly freeze milk, but also to correctly return it to a liquid state when it is required. It is necessary a few hours before feeding to move the bottle to the refrigerator. Thawing lasts about 12 hours. Warm up the milk to the desired temperature can be in a special device or on a water bath. Use for these purposes microwave oven is undesirable, as this leads to loss of useful properties of milk.