hi my name is dr sarah bjorkman and i'm a board-certified ob gyn and first-time mom and
this week i want to share with you something every breastfeeding mom has thought about at some point
and that is how long is my breast milk good for how long can it be in the freezer how long can it
be in the fridge today we are going to cover the breast milk storage guidelines right after this
welcome back we are so glad that you are here if this is your first time checking out our channel
as i said i'm sarah i'm an ob gyn just had a baby and my husband who's a pediatrician um and
i have been going through our pregnancy and trying to conceive in postpartum um
sharing our expertise as well as our in real life experiences um as we are learning so much
along the way so something i certainly um looked up and learned after i had little baby seas was
about breast milk storage so how long is breast milk good for
so one thing to know is that a lot of the breast milk storage guidelines
are based on formula storage or food handling guidelines and then kind of just applied to
breast milk so the recommendations you may see on other websites or on the CDC website maybe a
little more conservative but breast milk is really kind of this magical um liquid it has um it's it's
bioactive right it has a range of substances that feed um as well as protect your baby um it has a
different fat content throughout the course of the day the day it has nutrients to feed the baby um
it has white blood cells and other antimicrobial agents for when your kiddo gets sick it even
changes at night having some more sleep inducing neurotransmitters for your baby so breast milk
is really cool stuff um i made a little graphic um that we'll put up to show quickly these um numbers
for you but we're gonna real quick go through them so let's first talk about freshly pumped milk
freshly pumped milk is good for six to eight hours at room temperature um ideally put it in a fridge
in less than four hours um possibly up to 24 is fine if you accidentally left your breast milk
out for more than six to eight hours i would sniff it do the sniff test um spoiled milk is
nasty like you will know if it is spoiled if it smells fine you can offer it to your baby
your baby is not gonna drink spoiled milk okay um so six to eight hours freshly pumped um less
than four hours is ideal how long can you then leave this freshly pumped milk in the fridge
six to eight days is fine to leave breast milk in the fridge
ideally you wanna freeze it uh in three to four days
so how long can breast milk stay in the freezer you might say and the answer there is six to
twelve months so the recommendation is six months if it's in you know the freezer you use every day
and you get your ice cream out of it or whatever you're in and out of that freezer it doesn't
stay quite as cold um the recommendation is 12 months in a deep freezer however
breast milk frozen breast milk doesn't magically go bad on 12 months in one day
if you have breast milk that's been in there for longer again i would recommend that you saw it do
the sniff test if it smells okay great try to feed it to baby does baby eat it that is fine breast
milk that's bread in the freezer could get freezer burn just like regular food sometimes it oxidizes
people who have high lipase may notice that enzyme activates while it's in the freezer those are not
things that are harmful to your baby they're just reasons why your baby might not like it so the 12
months in a deep freezer is the recommendation if it's longer you can certainly try it um if your
baby won't drink it or you're worried you can use it in a milk bath there's lots of crazy creative
things you can do with it instead of throwing it away a couple other things i wanted to talk about
is so thawed milk that was previously frozen so thawed milk once you thaw the milk it is good for
24 hours in the fridge once it's thawed after you warm up previously frozen breast milk it is good
for two hours once it's warmed um and you should not re-freeze fro like breast milk that has been
thawed and offered to the baby or just you thought it and you didn't end up giving it to the baby
don't refreeze that you've got 24 hours to use it and then two hours after it's warmed up
um other things to think about if your freezer dies and you have breast milk in your freezer
this happened to me had a slight panic attack um know that if your frozen breast milk still has any
ice crystals in it it is fine to re-freeze it okay so when i say don't refreeze as long as there's
some ice crystals in it refreeze that stuff that's why i'm not super nervous about having
this out right now this sucker's still frozen solid it'll go back in the fridge and be fine
other things that i've learned warming milk is not medically necessary um if your kid will take
a bottle right out of the fridge awesome so nice then you don't have to mess with warming it up
um sometimes in the early days warming it might help your new little baby adjust to drinking from
a bottle um but chill chili from the fridge room temp that is totally fine um see skits a bottle
of breast milk at night and so when i feed her when she gets fed i usually pull just i pull the
bottle out two hours before i'm gonna get it give it to her set it on the counter and then
her dad gives it to her when we're done it's like lukewarm it's great don't have
to worry about warming it up other things when you are pumping breast milk and you
pump and you had this milk in the fridge you can in fact just mix that milk you
just pumped in with this stuff that is already cold um now if you have just a tiny bit of milk
in the fridge and you are gonna put 10 ounces of warm milk in not the best idea but if you have
you know some a decent amount of already cold milk or equivalent amounts it's totally fine
just you don't have to worry about multiple containers it is fine to pour that milk in here
and then the last thing um i don't know if you heard this but i did that um when breast milk has
after it settles in the fridge it kind of splits out and you can see there's like a layer of fat
um on the top of the milk i remember thinking you had to like gently swirl it to mix it back
in because you absolutely before you give the baby a bottle you want to mix that in to get
that fat mix throughout you can shake it you can absolutely shake that it's not going to hurt the
proteins and the breast milk it's not anything you don't need to delicately swirl it just
shake it mixes it back in great other things i guess um that i would think about are you
know okay so i pumped some fresh breast milk and i took it out of the fridge and i put it in a bottle
i put three ounces in the bottle and offered it to the baby and she only ate an ounce and a half
so you have an ounce and a half less of breast milk in the bottle what do you do with that so
option one it's probably it's fine to leave that out at room temp again for six to eight hours
to re-offer it to the baby that's fine um i know this happened to me a lot um in those early days
we'd pump we'd fill up a bottle with like four ounces and of course she didn't take that and
then we'd set it down and you get so busy and so tired and then you're like oh my gosh this
bottle's been sitting on the counter for four hours what do i do can i give it to the baby
yes you can offer to the baby again alternatively you can put it back in the refrigerator
and offer it to them the next time or the next day or whatever and here is a pic of the little
milk monster oh who's so ready for a nap um but you know her dog was keeping her busy so we could
film in her nursery yeah you ready you ready for napo are you ready for a nap little girl hey can
you smile nah okay so those are the breast milk storage guidelines i have to go get this brick
back in the refrigerator freezer um hopefully that is helpful for you hopefully these are an easy to
find place or you can print this little graphic which you can find over on our instagram which we
will put here um in the description as well if you have any questions concerns thoughts please leave
them below um happy you know breastfeeding we will see you all next week we're doctors but not your
doctors anything we've said in this video is for education or entertainment purposes only it is not
medical advice any specific medical questions you have should be directed to your provider