How to store breast milk in breast milk storage bags?

 

Breast feeding is the norm, especially in India and is also the healthiest way to feed an infant with proven long-term health benefits for the baby. However, sometimes, mothers prefer storing their milk to feed the baby. This happens if the baby is pre-mature and has a problem sucking, or if the mother or the baby is in the hospital and can’t be breast fed, or due to a busy lifestyle, the mother needs to store milk to feed the baby later. Here, we talk all about breast milk storage bags.

Expressed milk

What is expressed milk, you may wonder. This is merely milk that is extracted from the breasts and stored to be used for later. This process of expressing milk can be done by hand, with a manual breast pump or an electric breast pump. While doing this activity, it’s best to do it in a cosy and comfortable, private place. You need to be relaxed all the while; maybe at the start, you may be able to extract only a few drops, but it gets better and easier with time.

How to store breast milk?

Use of sterilised containers is recommended to store breast milk. You even get special storage bags to store it. These bags are much thicker, are FDA-approved and BPA-free; so, they are specifically designed to store and protect breast milk while in transit, thawing and freezing. Do ensure they have tight lids/seals to avoid spillage. Swapping these for regular plastic storage bags is not recommended. Also, breast milk storage bags have markers (ounce or ml) on them for you to keep a track of the quantity of milk stored and fed. 

Best way to store breast milk

Labelling the breast milk storage bag is always a good idea as it helps in keeping track of the date you expressed the milk before keeping it in the refrigerator. Freshly expressed breast milk can be stored for 6-8 hours at room temperature (not above 25ºC), for 72 hours in the coldest part of the fridge (4ºC or lower) or for two weeks in the freezer, where the temperature should be 15ºC or lower. It can also be stored for a longer duration of three months in the freezer that has a separate door in temperature of -18ºC or lower. Or, you can even deep-freeze it for up to a year under the constant temperature of -20ºC.

Choosing the correct ones

If you planning on expressing breast milk, it’s also important to pick the right breast milk storage bags. These bags have to be made of food-grade plastic; so, make sure that you choose ones specifically designed for the purpose. The bag should also have a tamper-resistant/safety seal that would ensure that it is clean and pure. A good bag takes minimum space in the fridge or freezer. Look for ones that allow you to directly pump into them instead of bottles. This would save you time of transferring the milk from the bottle to the bag. 

Remember, storing expressed milk is quite common and fairly simple provided you store it the correct way in good quality breast milk storage bags.