Re-heating unused/used Breastmilk

Once milk is heated, it should be dumped if not used. Why are you needing to heat breast milk in the middle of the night?? It is ready to go in your breasts - all nice and warm and fresh... this is the convenience of breast milk - not having to wake up fully to warm milk in the kitchen...


Frozen milk that is thawed cannot be refrozen, once it is heated, it cannot be reused.


Save your pumped milk for days when you are not there or on some really strong medication. You are creating alot more work for yourself otherwise...

Hi Mummybee--the way I understand it, if baby feeds on you FIRST, empties both breasts completely, and THEN is offered the bottle (rather than the other way around) you should start producing more milk, what your baby seems to be needing.


It would be nice to be able to rely soly on your breasts overnight rather than having to deal with warming bottles.


That doesn't help with your question of rewarmed milk, but I agree with Dimac4. What I read about BM (from the hospital) pointed to a short shelf life at room temperature or warmer. The problem is bacteria growth, and you'd hate to have your baby sick.

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Dear Mummybee:


I started pumping and bottle-feeding my baby with BM since he was only 3 weeks old. I had to teach him the bottle b/c I knew I was returning to work full-time in a few months. I also feel that every drop of my BM counts, because it takes so much effort to pump and store it! The couple of times I accidentally spilled some I got very upset with myself.


I learned from the La Leche League meetings that BM can be kept at room temperature (winter or summer with a/c on) for 4-6 hours minimum. Apparently BM content differs from individual to individual. As a result, some mothers are able to keep their BM in the refrigerator for as long as 8 days without the milk turning rancid. My milk seems to have a very low fat content if I pump in the morning (most foremilk I suspect), and in order to avoid wasting milk I usually just leave the milk out on the kitchen counter to thaw (or, if I have the time, to leave it in the refrigerator to thaw) instead of putting it in warm water. It takes longer but without the heating I feel the milk can be kept longer. Say, when it's thawed and turned to rm temperature my baby doesn't drink it right away, I can still put it in the fridge and keep it "good" for another day or two.


Regarding your second Q, if the baby does not finish a bottle of bm, I'd just leave it out at rm temp and give it to him the next feed (usually within 3-4 hours). You can not do that with formula. But I feel that BM has some "self-cleansing" qualities so if it's kept at, say 18 - 21 degrees, it should last a few hours. However, like I said everyone's milk is different. What I said above may or may not work for you.


Another thought - I also noticed that when I pump I get a better yield using the Avent Isis hand pump. I had a medela Symphony which worked OK, too. But the Isis gives me a fast let-down and better milk yield in a shorter amount of time.


Lastly, best luck to you and your baby.

I share your not wanting to throw away your breastmilk needlessly, esp when you don't get much from pumping - this was my experience as well. In situations 1 & 3 I would re-use once and my baby never came to any harm. We had a sticker system in the fridge whereby defrosted or already-heated milk had a red dot on the bottle. It's too precious to waste if you can help it!


A couple more points to add:

* Don't lose confidence in how much milk your breasts are producing due to the amount you are getting from a pump. The breasts react very differently to a baby than they do to a machine, and in some people this difference is more pronounced than others.

* What you're saying about your baby sleeping better under your current routine - remember that babies are always changing, so you can try after a while to see if the bottle in the night is still helpful.


I personally found my baby's sleeping patterns were not related much to food: the first time she slept through the night was after a very poor feed. Although I know that some babies wake more in the night after they start solids, because solids are actually filling them up with things that are lower in calories than milk. So making sure she is getting enough calories in the daytime is one way to discourage night wakings.

According to Dr. Ruth Lawrence a well known expert on Human Lactation it is ok to save expressed breastmilk if the feed was incomplete as well as using milk that has been heated once and not used. See the link below for more information from the www.Kellymom.com website.


Matilda International Hospital


Well Baby Clinic


A: It should be safe to save the left-over milk and use it at the next feeding.


Per Breastfeeding, A Guide for the Medical Profession by Ruth Lawrence, MD (p. 438):


Breastmilk can safely stand at room temperature for 6 to 8 hours and need not be discarded if the first feeding attempt is incomplete. In contrast, formula must be refrigerated and discarded after the first feeding attempt because it contains no antibodies or infection protection factors.


Can I 're-use' pumped breastmilk? Q&A by Ruth Lawrence, MD


"... If the milk is warmed up but not used, it is OK to reheat the milk once. But the more you reheat the more you decrease some of the valuable immunologic properties of the milk..."


If my baby doesn't finish a bottle of pumped breast milk can I save it for later? by Jan Barger, R.N., M.A., IBCLC


"...Based on this study, which admittedly needs to be done on a larger scale, it would seem to me that expressed breast milk, fed to the baby, partially consumed, and then refrigerated, could be used for one more feeding no more than four hours later. That's probably fairly conservative. One of the best tests of whether the milk is spoiled is to do what you do with cow's milk: Smell it and taste it!"


For more information please see the following link.


http://www.kellymom.com/bf/pumping/reusing-expressedmilk.html


Well Baby Clinic - 2849 1500

Matilda Intentaional Hospital

Hong Kong

http://www.matilda.org