🍼 Feeding · 0 – 12 months
🥛 Storing pumped breast milk
Follow your local maternity or child-health service’s milk-storage chart; fresh, thawed and partly consumed milk have different limits.
Gear to get ready
- Sterile milk storage bags or BPA-free glass/plastic bottles.
- Labels with the pumping date and time.
The storage rules
1. Clean, label and chill
Use clean food-grade milk containers, label the expression date and refrigerate promptly. Keep at the back of the fridge, not in the door. Premature or ill babies may need stricter hospital instructions.
2. Thaw safely
Thaw in the fridge or warm water, never microwave, and do not refreeze thawed milk. Ask your local service for the exact local temperature/time chart before storing milk.
A local detail, or your own experience with this guide? Write to the team
Same topic
When in doubt, contact your doctor or midwife. For a life-threatening emergency, call 911.