What you need to know about storing breast milk

If you are breastfeeding a baby, it is very important to create a home "bank" of breast milk. It can be useful to you in such cases as:

• If necessary, leave for a few hours;

• At long departure;

• With a disease associated with the need to take medications.

However, in order for expressed breast milk to benefit the baby, it is important to store it correctly.

What is breast milk stored in?

Forget about glassware, although it is very comfortable. For example, jars of baby food. In such dishes you can not freeze breast milk - the glass is not designed for minus temperature and it can cause microcracks, and after defrosting and microscopes that threaten to get into the milk.

Suitable packages or plastic containers with a tightly curled lid are suitable for long-term storage of breast milk.

How to store breast milk

After decantation, indicate on the jar or on the package the start date of the freezing. This will allow you to monitor the expiration date.

Recommended temperature mode:

• 4-6 hours at a temperature of 19 to 26 ° C

• 3-8 days at 4 ° C and below

• 6-12 months from -18 to -20 ° C

In the refrigerator - for a maximum of 10 hours.

Note that unfrozen breast milk can not be re-frozen. It already contains various microorganisms that can damage the fragile digestive tract of your crumbs.

Keep breast milk apart from other foods.

After expressing, put the breast milk in the refrigerator, and then into the freezer. So it will freeze more quickly.

More tips on how to store breast milk you can find on the site Detrostrana.ru.

Feeding a child with thawed breast milk

To feed the child, the milk must be removed in advance from the freezer. Do this beforehand so that defrosting is not emergency. But if it happened, put the bottle under a stream of warm water. By the way, many mothers use a heater. However, not all consider this gadget to be really useful.

Pay attention: breast milk after defrosting stratifies, so be sure to shake the bottle when you feed the crumbs.

Many mothers worry that feeding with expressed milk will cause the child to become addicted to the bottle. In fact, one feeding will not lead to this habit. But if doubts prevail - feed the baby from the spoon, watching that the food hit his cheek.

How much to store breast milk

Pediatricians recommend storing frozen breast milk not more than three months. It is believed that if it "is", it will affect the taste.