Re-heating Frozen Breast Milk

No. Breast milk cannot be reused once heated.
However, if he'll take it cold you can use it again for cereal... I pump and freeze it in smaller quantities so you don't have to waste any 'liquid gold.'

My ped. told me the general rule of thumb is "What would you do for yourself?" If you had left over milk in a glass, would you put it in the fridge for later?

He also referred to breatmilk as better than gold, platinum in fact. His wife trained him well. =)

Here is something I found interesting. I hope that it helps.

Breastfeeding: Storing and Handling Breast Milk
Keep It Fresh for Baby
-- By Becky Hand, Licensed and Registered Dietician

What is your plan? to work outside the home full-time, part-time, or to be a stay-at-home mom? Whatever your plan, there will be times when you will be glad that you have a reserve of stored breast milk for occasional needs, emergencies, or daily feedings and care. Knowing the proper and safe steps to store breast milk is vital to the safety and health of your infant.

STEPS:
Wash your hands before expressing breast milk.
Make sure all equipment used to store breast milk is properly cleaned.

If you use a breast pump, review and follow the operation and cleaning instructions.

Breast milk can be stored in glass bottles, hard plastic bottles or freezer bags. If using plastic freezer bags, use the bags that are designed specifically for storing breast milk. For breast milk stored in the refrigerator, use plastic bottles. The protective properties of breast milk are better retained in plastic. Breast milk can be frozen in either plastic or glass containers.

However, glass is less likely to crack under freezer conditions. To allow for expansion, do not completely fill bottles when freezing.

Freshly pumped breast milk can be kept:
10 hours at room temperature below 72 degrees Fahrenheit.
4-8 hours at room temperature below 79 degrees Fahrenheit.
5-8 days in the refrigerator at 39 degrees Fahrenheit or below.
2 weeks in a freezer compartment inside the refrigerator.
3-4 months in a refrigerator-freezer with a separate door.
6-12 months in a deep freezer at temperatures below 0 degrees Fahrenheit.

Remember to date the expressed breast milk. Then use a rotating system of first-in, first-out. Also remember:
Breast milk should be stored in small amounts. For infants 1-3 months old, store in 2 to 4 ounce portions. For older infants, 4 to 6 ounce portions can be used. This will help avoid wasting unused breast milk after feedings.
Never pour body-temperature milk on the top of frozen milk. This could partially thaw the frozen milk and allow bacteria to grow. Instead, chill the breast milk and then add it to a container of already-frozen milk.

Frozen breast milk can be thawed in the refrigerator, under warm running water from the faucet, or in a bowl of warm water.

To warm breast milk, run lukewarm tap water over the bottle of milk or place it in a bowl of warm water. This will take the chill off the milk. Before feeding the breast milk, gently shake the container to ensure an even temperature and to mix the layers. It is common for breast milk to separate during storage. Use the breast milk within 24 hours and never refreeze it.

Do not thaw or heat breast milk in a pan on the stove or in the microwave. Do not boil the breast milk. High heating temperatures (over 100 degrees Fahrenheit) can destroy nutrients and protective properties of the milk.

Because bacteria from the baby's mouth can get into the milk, NEVER store and reuse a bottle of breast milk once your baby has been fed from that bottle. The bacteria can multiply and then make your baby sick.

Use the weight of the baby to estimate the amount of breast milk to leave for each feeding. The following example calculates a 12 pound baby's needs.
Round the baby's weight to the nearest half pound (12 pounds).

Multiply this weight in pounds by 3 (12 x 3 = 36).
Divide by 8 to get the number of ounces of breast milk to leave for each bottle-feeding (36/8 = 4.5).
Therefore leave 4-5 ounces of breast milk for each feeding.

As a general rule, you can refrigerate, and reoffer the bottle one time. I see from some of the responses that moms are getting formula mixed up with breastmilk. Because of breastmilk's natural anti-bacterial componants, it "eats" away at anything bad. Formula, on the other-hand, will not, and therefore should never be reoffered to the baby once he's taken from that bottle.

Another comment said that you should not heat. That is not true. You CAN heat breastmilk, but should not heat in the microwave because that can easily over-heat and break down special molecules in breastmilk. Also, it creates Hot Spots in the milk that can be dangerous.

There is a chart at how long you can keep breastmilk, fresh, refrigerated, frozen, etc. at http://www.kellymom.com/bf/pumping/milkstorage.html

good luck and best regards,
L. R., Lact Educator
www.EliteBreastfeeding.com

I do not believe that breast milk can be re-cooled after being defrosted. The 4 ounce bags are a wonderful tool, but only pull one at a time. That way, you are not wasting breast milk. When he takes to the bottle a bit better, start taking out two. If you freeze the bags flat, they will defrost under a hot tap in about 30 seconds. The flatter they are, the faster they defrost, so there won't be much of a wait for him if you only do one bag at a time.

Hi! According to what I have read, and therefore the rule I always followed, anything left in the bottle cannot be saved for later. Just keep your fingers crossed that you guess about the right amount and that you don't have to throw out too much unused milk. We all know how precious that stuff is!!

You're right on that defrosted breast milk should be used within 24 hours. What I learned is that milk should be used/tossed after 1 hour once feeding starts. So if baby starts eating at 10 am, and 2 oz are left, try to see if he'll finish it before 11 am. Otherwise, toss.

S.,

www.kellymom.com is my absolute favorite info for all things breastfeeding. They have tons of info on milk storage and all the related issues.

But, when you thaw out frozen milk, it can be kept in the fridge for 24 hours. So serve it to your baby in 1 or 2 or 3 ounce increments. You can always add more to the bottle and then you won't have to throw as much away. Thawed milk should not be re-served. There is too high of a risk of contamination and spoilage. When you thaw it, thaw it in room temperature water and then refrigerate what you aren't sure you are going to use right away. You can also thaw overnight in the fridge if you've planned that far ahead. If your babysitter is open to the idea, the first week, send a bunch of 2 ounce bottles and then give her a few packets of frozen milk for her freezer for back up.

Are you going to be pumping at work? If you are, what I did is serve tomorrow whatever I pumped today. If I didn't pump enough and needed to use frozen milk, I'd label that bottle "1" to be used first. That way all the other bottles were not previously frozen so if they didn't get used by the end of the day, I'd send them the next day labeled "1" "2" and so on so the older stuff would be used first. If I had milk in the freezer I needed to use, I'd send one or two bottles of frozen labeled "1" and maybe "2" if there was more than one "frozen" and then fresh bottles for "3" and "4." It is always a delicate balance of knowing which milk is what to make sure you aren't serving compromised milk but you also aren't throwing away any that doesn't need to be thrown away.

Freshly pumped milk is good in the fridge for at least 3-4 days and can be reserved - so I used refrigerated milk as much as possible (also saves on those expensive little freezer bags if you aren't constantly freezing and thawing).

If you do serve frozen milk and he doesn't finish it, yes, I'd mix it into cereal and use it right away. No point in wasting it if you can get him to eat it in another form.

Good luck in going back to work!

Oh, some babies like fresh milk better than frozen. So you can try mixing the two to see if he drinks it better but always treat mixed milk like the oldest or most compromised milk in the bottle.

:-)T.

Hi S.,

My kids are 4 and 5 now, so it's been a while since I've had to deal with this issue. My rule of thumb back then is that if my son didn't finish his bottle of defrosted breast milk, I would just put the bottle with the unused portion in the fridge and reheat it a little bit whe he was ready to drink more later that day or I would add it to his cereal. At the end of the day, I would toss whatever food or breastmilk was not consumed. Also, I tossed anything that was left out for more than an hour.

L.

My pediatrician told me 3 hours. Once thawed (put your freezer bag in a pyrex full of boiling water- microwaving kills off some of the good stuff), use within 3 hours. My little squirt ate about 1 oz an hour and "knew" when I was coming home so she ate as soon as I came in the door. By that time, I was ready for her too.

No breastmilk can not be reused once it is used. There can be bacteria from the bottle (i.e. backwash) so it is good for that feeding only. Good Luck!

I think you can save it for a bit. You will know by the smell -- and also if your child turns up his/her nose at it! It's more of a taste thing than a safety thing. Also, I never actually "heated" breastmilk. We tried to thaw it in the refrigerator and then let it get to room temperature, but if we didn't take it out in time, we'd put a bag of it in a cup of warm water. Heating it kills off some of the beneficial antibiotics and bacteria that naturally exist in our milk. If your caregiver can just hold it for a few minutes to get it to more or less body temp, that should be just right. I wouldn't heat first and then put back in the fridge for more than a couple of hours, but if it's only been to room temperature you can probably save it, say, overnight.

YES!! Put it in the fridge and warm it up for later. You can't re-freeze, so don't take out too much. Some times I did re-freeze though and no one ever got sick. I re-used it. I have three babies and went back to work w/all of them.

TO ME the milk is very valuable. You can't buy it. And pumping is hard work. It's like gold, I didn't want to throw it away. If it smelled really rancid and had been left out for a long time then I'd toss it or use it in cereal-depending on how desperate I got. Oh and if you're baby is sleeping through the night you can always wake up and pump, it is a hassle i know, but it's so nice to know you've got TONS of extra milk later when the baby is going throw a growth spurt.

lots of luck. oh yeah, and remember that sometimes the person feeding the baby may need to wear your shirt or something to smell like you. and maybe face away from the person feeding-unless it's your hubby.

good luck!
s

I froze a lot of my milk too, and from all I read once you have heated the thawed milk, it is safe for approximately 8 hours without refrigeration. Problem is it is not recommeded that you refrigerate and reheat it, so typically what is not consumed right away is discarded. I added it to cereal, and tried to just heat up small amounts at a time in order not to waste it. I pre made bottles with 3 oz, 4 oz, ect so it was easy to just heat and use. I have also reheated the milk, if it was not warm enough (and not too much after the intial heating) and it was never a problem. I hated to discard any, as we all know how hard it is to collect it. As long as baby is getting some breast milk then all should be just fine. Hope this helps.

Once the milk is warmed and he's drank some, it can NOT be put in the fridge again. However, if you were going to feed him cereal right after his bottle you can use that milk to mix in with his cereal (so that it doesn't go to waste :))Then what ever is left over needs be tossed.

It's what i've done with the lil ones I've cared for & for my 4 lil' ones.

I hope that I was of some help :)
~Aloha :)

Hi S.,
I've been freezing milk for my now 9-month old daughter since I went back to work when she was 3 months old.

I know how hard it is to throw out that breastmilk that you've worked so hard for, but please be careful. It really is only good for 24 hours or so once it's been frozen, and it does go bad faster after the frozen milk has been warmed. I've had two experiences recently that I think led to diarrhea in my daughter. The first time, the sitter had two ounces that she thawed under cold water and didn't use. It was kept cold (not frozen). I tried using it the next day to make my daugher's cereal, and discovered that it was bad after she had taken two bites or so. The next time we were going out, and I mixed 3 oz thawed overnight in the fridge with 3 oz I had pumped the day before and refridgerated. My daughter only drank 3 oz out of the bottle. Before we left, I smelled the remaining 3 oz and it was bad. I dumped it down the sink and nursed her to sleep in the car.

I'd say to toss anything that had been previously frozen after it's been at room temperature or warmer for an hour, but whatever you do, make sure the milk passes the sniff test before you give it to you son. It will definitely smell bad if it's gone bad.

Hi S., I would not re heat any type of milk or fourmula, you can put it in his ceral, but if not throw it out. I had cats so ialways gave them what was left, boy it made their fur so shinny and soft. J.

Your thawed milk is good for 24 hours after thawed to room temp. I would refrig what is not consumed within 1 hour and toss if it is not used by the 24 hour time frame. Laurie D had good advice.

HI there,
I have read that you shouldn't use milk that has been thawed after 24 hours. I also read something about the bacteria left from their mouths on the bottle is also not good for them. Don't ask why cause I'm not sure. I still reheated my breastmilk after it has been used. I couldn't afford to lose what I pumped. Although I did throw a lot of it away at the end of the day. I did that for 8 months and then switched to formula after I wasn't producing enough milk. I slowly mixed in a little formula at a time until my daughter got used to it.
Good luck at work! Take care.

My lactation specialist said that once thawed (and even warmed) it lasted 24 hours. It worked for my little one through many business trips! She's still nursing at 8 months, though my supply seems to be waning!