How to manage expressed breastmilk

This is the recommendation from the Department of Health, Hong Kong.

• How to Store Breastmilk
• How to thaw and warm breastmilk

How to Store Breastmilk

Breastmilk is the most precious food for your baby. You should store it properly in milk storage bags, sterilised plastic or glass containers with a tight lid.

Here is the storage recommendations from the Department of Health.

Room Temperature (25-37°C)	4 hours
Cooler bag with ice packs	24 hours
Refrigerator Chill compartment (2-4°C)	5 days
Refrigerator Freezer compartment (-18°C)	3 months
Deep freezer (-20°C))	6 months
Storage temperature	Duration

You can store freshly expressed milk together with frozen breastmilk. However, you need to chill the freshly expressed milk in the refrigerator for an hour before adding it into the frozen milk. It should be noted that the amount of frozen milk should be more than the chilled milk.

It is important to note that:

• You must not put freshly expressed breastmilk directly to frozen milk
• You should never store breastmilk near the door of refrigerator or freezer where the temperature is unstable
• If you want to store breastmilk for premature or ill babies,please consult medical professionals beforehand

How to thaw and warm breastmilk

Frozen milk:

Take the frozen milk from the freezer to the chill compartment of refrigerator the night before feeding to thaw slowly. Thawed breastmilk should be consumed within 24 hours. You can thaw frozen milk quickly under running tap water.

Chilled milk:

You can warm the milk by placing the bottle in a glass or mug of warm water. Test the temperature using the back of your hand before feeding the baby. Warmed milk must be consumed within an hour.

DO NOT use a microwave oven to heat or thaw breastmilk. Microwave oven heat liquid unevenly which may scald your baby. It may also destroy the nutrients in breastmilk.

It is important to note that breastmilk could not be frozen or put back into a refrigerator or freezer again after they are thawed or warmed. They should be consumed as soon as possible to prevent bacteria growing within the milk.