How to store expressed breast milk?

Many mothers resort to decanting and preserving breast milk. Some do so occasionally, leaving a portion of the expressed milk to the crumbs for a while away, others express the milk for the future regularly, knowing that they will have to leave for a long time and provide the baby with the most valuable food for him. In any case, information on how to store breast milk after decanting will be useful to most moms.

A nursing mother can decant at work, because even at room temperature, breast milk will not spoil for ten hours. Such milk can be given to the child after returning home or frozen.

In order to prolong the storage of milk expressed at work, if there is no usual refrigerator nearby, a mother can hire a cooler bag or an ordinary thermos that cools at home shortly before going out (pour ice into a thermos and pour it before putting it in a milk container).

If you are going to feed the crumb with your expressed milk in the next two days, it is preferable to store the product in the refrigerator. In this case, you will not need to defrost it. In addition, the immune factors in such a jelly are stored in larger quantities than in frozen ones.

Strain the milk only in a clean container. To store milk for a long time, you will need containers that are tightly closed. They can be made of both glass and plastic. The material of the storage tank does not affect the quality composition of breast milk.

Such containers can be presented:

• bottles,
• glasses
• containers
• packages.

When choosing a container for breast milk, it is important to consider the ease of its use. So, special plastic bags are able to directly connect to the breast pump and take up less space in the freezer. Such bags are made from fairly dense material and are sold sterilized. They usually have a place where they write the date of procurement of milk.

To capture the expressed breast milk for a walk, you can use a thermos bottle or a thermo bag. The use of such things is very convenient for mothers who have planned a long walk, during which the baby may get hungry, and there may not be an opportunity to breastfeed.

• The optimal volume for freezing is 60-120 ml. Such a volume can be used for one or two feedings and not to pour out unused product, since thawed milk cannot be put back in the freezer.
• You can add fresh chilled milk to an already frozen product if the volume of fresh milk is less than the volume of the frozen portion.
• Do not store the expressed female milk on the refrigerator door. Place containers of milk inside the main chamber of the device in the coldest place. The storage temperature of the milk should be stable.
• Milk should also be placed in the freezer near the far wall.

If you are not pumping one full portion while pumping, put it in the fridge. The next time after decanting, simply fill up the container. Please note that this must be done within 24 hours.

If you have not previously decanted, you may be surprised at the external differences between breast milk and cow milk. Female milk, when it stands, is divided into the upper fat layer and the lower liquid. This is not a sign of a deteriorated product, and as soon as you shake the container, the milk will again have a uniform consistency.

If fast freezing has been used, then the milk remains of a uniform consistency.

The milk that is expressed at different times changes its composition and appearance. Fat content may differ in different portions, received both on different days, and even during the same decanting (at the beginning and at the end). The color is also very different - it can be both bluish and yellow, pink, greenish. It all depends on what Mommy used to eat. So it is impossible to determine by color that the milk has spoiled.

One of the factors indicating the spoilage of milk is its smell:

• Fresh female milk has a rather subtle and slightly sweet flavor.
• A defrosted product may have a soapy smell, which is not considered a sign of spoilage.
• If the smell of milk is sour and sharp, then, most likely, such a product has already deteriorated.

A baby may refuse thawed milk due to the product acquiring an odor resembling soap. This happens if the containers with milk were placed in storage in the freezer of the refrigerator, which does not need to be thawed.

If your milk smells of soap upon cooling, then it should be heated to a sufficiently hot state, but not more than 60 degrees, before freezing, and then quickly cooled and frozen. In this case, the lipase is destroyed, and the soapy smell does not appear on the product.