Can you refreeze thawed breast milk

Daily sterilizing may not be necessary with a healthy, older infant, but you might want to sterilize weekly. If you use a dishwasher with a hot water and heated drying cycle, then sterilizing is not necessary. You can also wipe down the exterior of your tubing. According to Registered Nurse and Certified Lactation Counselor Shantel Harlin , first, wash the bottles and pump parts that come into contact with your breast milk.

Once these are clean, you can sterilize your parts by using specially made steam sterilizer bags or by placing your parts in a pot of water and boiling them for 5 minutes.

When the parts are sterilized, place them on a clean, dry towel to air dry. Freshly expressed breast milk in a closed bottle can be left out at room temperature for hours.

You can store your fresh milk in the refrigerator for days. If you plan to use the milk within days, you do not need to freeze it. Just be sure to label your milk with the date so you know when it expires. For tips on keeping milk cold while traveling, check out our blog , and fo r tips on using dry ice in a cooler, check out this blog. You can refrigerate milk for days and move it to the freezer any time before that period is over.

Keep your milk in the back of the fridge, where it is less likely to be affected by temperature fluctuations from opening and closing the door. Ideally, you will use your frozen supply within months, but it is safe for consumption for up to 12 months if stored in a deep freezer.

Once you thaw frozen milk, it can be refrigerated and used for up to 24 hours. According to KellyMom , if your milk contains ice crystals and has not completely thawed, it is still considered frozen and is therefore safe to refreeze. Check that your breast milk storage containers can be used in the freezer — some products such as glass bottles may crack at very low temperatures. Store frozen breast milk at the back of the freezer where the temperature is most consistent.

Keep it away from the walls of self-defrosting freezers. Once fully thawed, previously frozen breast milk may be kept at room temperature for a maximum of two hours or in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours.

These can damage its nutritional and protective properties and create hot spots that could scald your baby. Thawed breast milk left at room temperature should be fed to your baby within two hours or thrown away. Never re-freeze breast milk once thawed. How to warm your stored breast milk 2,3 Healthy, full-term babies can drink breast milk at room temperature or warmed to body temperature.

Alternatively, use a bottle warmer. Gently swirl the bottle or bag, without shaking or stirring, to mix any separated fat see above.

Why does my stored breast milk smell odd? Breast milk storage on the go If you have to transport your milk between work and home or daycare, use a cooler bag with ice packs. Using a breast pump. ABM clinical protocol 8: human milk storage information for home use for full-term infants, revised Breastfeed Med 12, While the power is out, keep the freezer and refrigerator doors closed as much as possible.

Once the power is back on, check the condition of your stored breast milk. Frozen breast milk that has started to thaw but still contains ice crystals can be refrozen.

If your breast milk has completely thawed but still feels cold, put it in the refrigerator and use it within the next day or throw it away. Expressed breast milk is a food and may be stored alongside other foods in any refrigerator that is appropriate for food storage.

Employers, coworkers, cleaning staff, other family members, and childcare providers should not consider or treat breast milk as a biohazard. Storing breast milk in a shared refrigerator and washing pump parts in community break rooms are unlikely to pose health risks sanitary or safety issues ; however, it is important that the breast pump equipment be cleaned, dried, and stored in a sanitary clean environment to protect the equipment and expressed breast milk from contamination.

Expressed breast milk may be stored and transported in an insulated cooler bag with frozen ice packs for up to 24 hours, or else frozen in dry ice follow safety precautions when handling dry ice external icon. Once breast milk is cooled, it should remain cool until it is consumed. Breast milk that has been transported in an insulated cooler bag with frozen ice packs can then be refrigerated or frozen.

Depending on the destination, if no reliable breast milk storage is available, a mother traveling with expressed breast milk could consider using temperature-controlled shipping to transport breast milk or discarding her expressed breast milk.

Continuing to express breast milk regularly will help a mother to maintain her breast milk supply until she and her nursing infant or child can be reunited. Skip directly to site content Skip directly to page options Skip directly to A-Z link. Section Navigation. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Syndicate. At this time no recommendations can be made on the refreezing of thawed human milk.

However, there is some information on refreezing human milk. The researchers used donor milk that had been expressed by mothers without following any special sanitary guidelines.

The frozen milk was thawed overnight at refrigerator temperature, separated into batches, then refrozen in separate batches and thawed for a second time to room temperature. Vitamin content was adequate for all the refrozen samples, and none of the sample batches that had been refrozen had unsafe levels of bacteria.