At a time when the baby is exclusively breastfed , storing breast milk will be beneficial for the nursing mother. First, you can leave milk for the baby in case you need to leave your mother, then you can save 1-2 servings for the time of absence. It happens that a woman needs to go to work, in this case, you can express milk from the very beginning of feeding and keep it frozen. Also, pediatricians recommend having several servings of frozen milk in case, for some reason, the mother can not feed the baby, for example, due to illness and medication. There are certain rules for storing breast milk.
Pumping and ware for milk storage
Whether it is possible to store breastmilk primarily depends on the conditions in which it was expressed. It is best to do this with a sterile electric or manual breast pump right into the container in which it will be stored. If this is not possible, wash your hands very carefully and use a sterile container. No bacteria should enter the milk.
One of the conditions for storing breast milk is the selection of suitable utensils. It does not matter, milk will be stored in high-quality plastic or glass, the main thing is to keep the container securely closed. It is better and more convenient if you can then put on a pacifier and feed the baby directly from the container, not pouring the milk anywhere. There are special containers in which milk is equally convenient to store in the refrigerator and in the freezer.
How much should breast milk be stored?
There are several simple requirements that you need to perform accurately and carefully. In order to understand how to properly store breast milk, first you need to decide what will be the shelf life. Depending on whether the milk is used tomorrow or in a month, the storage conditions should be changed.
The storage time of expressed breast milk, directly depends on the temperature in which it is placed:
- at room temperature (up to 25 degrees) milk can be left no more than 4 hours;
- in a special refrigerator bag, milk can be kept for 24 hours;
- in the refrigerator (up to 4 degrees) the storage period will be from three to five days.
How much frozen breast milk is stored depends on the freezer. In any case, put the container with milk is better into the chamber. In refrigerators with one door, where the freezer is built-in, the milk does not deteriorate for 2 weeks, in the freezer with a separate door the period is extended to 3 months, and in special freezers at -20 to 6 months.
Do not put milk in the freezer, if it has stood in the refrigerator for more than a day.
Defrosted milk can be left in the refrigerator no more than for 24 hours, and it can not be re-frozen.
Frozen milk in its properties is inferior to the stored in the refrigerator in nutritional and nutritious properties, so before deciding where to store the expressed breast milk, you need to decide how long it will be stored and whether it is necessary to freeze it.
There are several rules how to save expressed breast milk, adding it to frozen earlier:
- the added portion should be small;
- before the addition, the milk is put in the refrigerator for pre-cooling;
- adding a serving of milk to the already frozen, the bottle is put on its side, the second portion is frozen, turning the bottle on the other side, for the third portion, the bottle can be put upside down,
so that the added milk does not thaw out what is already in the bottle.
Knowing how long breastmilk is stored, mom can be sure that her baby will get all the nutrients necessary for growth and development, even if she does not have the opportunity to feed him. In order to monitor the storage period it was convenient, it is desirable to indicate the date of decantation on the jars.
Deciding in what, for how long and how to preserve breast milk, the mother can provide the child with this indispensable product for the necessary period.