🍼 Feeding · 0 – 12 months
🥛 Storing pumped breast milk
Milk storage depends on hygiene, temperature and whether baby is healthy or hospitalised.
The storage rules
1. What to prepare
Wash hands, use clean food-grade milk containers, label expression date and time, and refrigerate promptly at the back of the fridge.
2. What to check
Use your local service’s storage table, not a universal timetable. Thaw in the fridge or safely with warm water, never microwave or refreeze thawed milk; hospital teams set rules for sick or premature babies.
3. In Ireland
Use HSE’s expressed-milk storage table for a healthy term baby and the hospital’s own instructions for a sick or premature baby.
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 112 or 999.