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Storing Breast Milk Tips

There are bags that are specially made to store expressed breast milk. You can use small disposable bottle bags or small glass or plastic bottles as well. Depending on how soon you want to use the expressed milk, you can either refrigerate or freeze it. Here are a few tips to follow:

* Fresh expressed milk can be stored for ten hours at room temperature. Milk brought to room temperature after refrigerating or freezing must be used within half an hour.
* Fresh expressed milk can be refrigerated for anything between five to seven days. Taste the milk to find out whether it is fresh, before giving it to your baby.
* You can store freshly expressed milk for up to six months in an average freezer, depending on the efficiency of the freezer.
* Make sure you store in the coldest part of the freezer and away from the door.
* Pumped milk that has been refrigerated for less than 48 hours can be frozen. If refrigerated for more that 48 hours, it should not be frozen.
* Freezing causes breast milk to expand. While filling bottles or bags, leave about one inch from the top, so that there is place to accommodate this expansion. If you are using a disposable bag, fold the top and fasten it with a rubber band.
* Milk containers should be labeled with the time and date on which it was expressed.
* If you can express large quantities of milk, do not store it in a bigbottle or bag. Use small bags or bottles. The baby will need only small quantities at a time and you can defreeze one small bag or bottle each time. Thus, wastage will be minimized.
* If you want to transport stored breast milk to use away from home, keep it cold till you use it. Use a cooler with ice or frozen packs to keep the milk cold, while transporting it.
* The oldest milk should be used first.