How to store and use expressed breast milk?

How do I store EBM?

Expressed Breast Milk or EBM can be stored using a breast milk storage bag, a plastic bottle or a glass bottle. I stored mine in Avent bottles like this:

Label them with the date and time you expressed out the milk. I also store them in glass bottles given by hospitals.

It is recommended that you don't store too much milk in one big bottle because when you want to take it out to thaw, you'll waste the milk if you do not need to use so much of it at one go.

My friends also get free glass bottles from Mount Alvernia before they discharge so that they can store breast milk in them. I got mine from a mother I knew in the forum. We buy plastic caps for the glass bottles like the ones in the picture below from Mount Alvernia pharmacy. You can only get them in hospital pharmacy.

The Avent bottles can store up to 180ml while the glass bottles can only store up to 120ml. Remember to leave a gap and not to fill the breast milk to the brim because breast milk, like all liquids expand when frozen and the bottle may crack. One of my breast milk overflow the bottle and broke the cap when it is frozen.

How long can I keep the EBM?

Here's a simple formula to remember how long you can keep EBM:

In freezer: 3 months

In fridge: 3 days

In room temperature: 3 hours

If baby already started drinking the milk, use it up within 1 hr, although some websites say we can leave it to feed for the next feed. In hot and humid Singapore, bacteria grows more quickly.

Do not re-warm, or re-freeze breast milk that you took out to use and don't put used breast milk back into the fridge.

How to heat up the EBM?

No, you do not heat it up. You only warm it up! So do not boil it or use hot water to pure over the bottle.

To use the EBM, if you take it out from the freezer, put it in the fridge to thaw. Do not thaw it outside at room temperature. It takes about 12 hours to thaw completely so do remember to take it out of the freezer one day before the day you need to use it. After it is completely thawed, the EBM can be kept in the fridge for another 3 days.

After taking the thawed EBM or freshly expressed and kept in fridge EBM out from the fridge, put it in a bottle of warm water to heat. Remember not to boil EBM or use boiling water to heat up the EBM. High temperatures can kill the nutrients in the EBM. We should use water at 40 Degree Celsius. I usually don't test the temperature to exactly 40 Degrees Celcius. I simply take a cup of warm water, pressed out from my water flask, and test with my hand that its not too hot. It should not have steam coming out from it, and it should not scald your hand when you touch it. Then I place the sterilized milk bottle with EBM into the cup of warm water. After the water has cooled and the EBM is not warm yet, I press out another cup of warm water, test it, add cool tap water if its too hot, and then warm the EBM again. I repeat this again and again until the EBM is nicely at room temperature. Actually if you ask me, I'd rather give baby EBM that is too cold rather than too hot as baby may be scalded.

Also, the contents of EBM, when stored in fridge will separate into layers. Swirl the bottle a bit before warming and feeding.