How long can you store breast milk in the refrigerator and how to do it?

Female milk, undoubtedly, is the best food for the baby. Therefore, breastfeeding moms, even in conditions where breastfeeding does not work, tend to keep the milk to give the crumbs such valuable nutrition. Why store it in expressed form and how best to keep this product?

Moms want to express milk and make it for the following reasons:

• If the mother is required to leave for a while, for example, go to the hospital or leave the city.
• If the baby refuses to drink milk from the breast for some reason.
• When mommy goes to work, and during her absence, another adult will feed the baby with expressed breast milk.

The most affordable and preferred storage option is to put this product in a refrigerator.

It is necessary to approach responsibly the choice of container in which women's milk will be stored. Especially important is the cleanliness of ware for storage. Also, the container should certainly have a tight-fitting lid.

The container for this can be made of plastic or glass. Glass containers are preferred. You can put the milk in special sterile containers that are bought in pharmacies. Convenient and plastic cups, which are combined with a breast pump. For the manufacture of such containers using a fairly durable material.

• Both the breast pump and the container in which breast milk will be stored must be clean and treated with boiling water.
• Milk should not be boiled so as not to destroy its important ingredients, but you can pasteurize for 30 minutes.

It is best to place the expressed milk not on the door of the refrigerator, but to the depth of the refrigerator compartment on the shelf where the milk can be stored for up to 48 hours. If the container is on the door, it will be subject to constant temperature changes during the opening of the refrigerator, which will significantly reduce the shelf life of the product.

Feminine milk, left at room temperature and stored in the refrigerator, will be stratified. Its fatty component will form a separate layer at the top of the tank. Before feeding such baby milk, it is gently mixed, ensuring the restoration of uniformity. If it is frozen quickly, delamination may not occur and the liquid will remain homogeneous.

Freshly compounded human milk for storage in the refrigerator should be placed inside the refrigerator for twenty minutes after getting out of the chest. If you plan to freeze it, you must put it in the freezer immediately after decanting.

If such a product is obtained during pumping in one day, then it is permissible to combine human milk in one portion. In this case, the expressed milk should be immediately put in the refrigerator, and when the time for the next decantation has come, this milk is taken out of the refrigerator, the new portion is poured into it, and then the liquid is put back into the refrigerating chamber again.

If pumping is done by hand, then there is a big risk of compromising product purity. With manual pumping more microbes get into the milk, which is why the bacterial flora harmful to the crumbs can multiply in the product (and this threatens the digestive disorders of the baby). That is why those who want to keep it should use a breast pump.

The appearance of milk (its color and texture) change quite often. They differ both in different women and in one nursing mother in different months of a child’s life, at different times of day, and even during a single pumping. So, assessing the color or texture, you can not determine that the product is spoiled.

The fact that breast milk has become unsuitable for feeding babies, you will understand by smell and taste of food. Note that, normally, it may have a sweetish smell or acquire the smell of foods eaten by mommy (garlic, herring, onion, hot spices, and others).

He also may have a soapy smell after refrigerated. Although it is not spoiled, often the kids refuse it.

The taste of spoiled milk can become bitter or sour. This product should not be given to the child.

• Try to store it in such containers, where approximately one portion is placed for feeding the little ones.
• If the mom gets a lot of milk pumped out (you get a lot of containers), then the container should be labeled, indicating the date of pumping.
• Heat the milk stored in the refrigerator in hot water by placing a container of milk under a stream of water or in a large container filled with water.
• Before giving the milk to the baby, be sure to try whether the liquid is hot (dripping on your wrist) and what it tastes like.
• If you have doubted the freshness and quality, it is better not to give his child.