Babies: 0 - 3 Months
Warming refrigerated breast milk?
How long can you keep breast milk after it has been warmed from the refrigerator but not yet offered to LO? Can you put it back in the fridge? I can only find guidelines for milk that has been thawed from the freezer, not warmed straight from the fridge and I'm not sure if the guidelines are different?
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Re: Warming refrigerated breast milk?
yep
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This is for formula, not breastmilk.
Yep! There's some discrepancy. I'd say that once breastmilk has been warmed, it's fine for 4-8 hours. But if your LO drank from the bottle, I wouldn't give it that long - I'd discard within an hour.
Totally feel ur pain on the confusion. I had this ? for a while and I still struggle. My Medela pump has some breastfeeding q&a. For the question how long is bm good for, the answer is "There is no resarch to answer this question (thanks Medela
). It goes on to say there have been no reports of harm if the milk is refrigerated, re-warmed and used within a few hours. Check with your doc."
Bottom line- its a grey area. Do what works best for you, but baby will most likely be okay. Check with your doctor if you're really concerned. You can also use the "When in doubt, throw it out" rule. Good luck!
Maybe I'm a bad mother but I've warmed it, put it back in the fridge and warmed it a 2nd time. Baby has never been sick and is 4 1/2 months, gaining great weight. Apparently it isn't spoiled since it hasn't seemed to affect her at all!
When we were discharged from the hospital they said use all milk that has been thawed within 24 hours of thawing (I pump exclusively for reasons relating to prematurity), but they never spoke about how long it can stay at room temp. They did say room temp is fine for 4-6 hours after pumping, and if you put it in the fridge after pumping it is good for up to 6 days. Frozen it is good for 3-6 months depending on the freezer (deep freeze is longer).