January 2012 Moms

Have breastmilk, will travel?

Hey y'all,

So, my hub and I are off for a 4-day weekend away tomorrow. Yahoo! Question, though: I will need to pump the entire weekend away and cannot fathom the thought of dumping out all the breastmilk, especially since my DD will be burning through a good portion of my freezer stash while I'm away.

How do I go about getting the breastmilk back with me (we are traveling by plane)? Should I plan to have a small cooler that I can bring as my carry on item? Will they let me carry on breastmilk since it is a liquid? Help!

Re: Have breastmilk, will travel?

  • You can bring it on the plane. I plan on putting it in a lunch box cooler. Make sure it is in milk storage bags, or bottles to avoid any trouble. Have it out in a clear bag at the security check point. You are also allowed to have ice packs to keep it cold. 
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  • imagemegaloo27:
    You can bring it on the plane. I plan on putting it in a lunch box cooler. Make sure it is in milk storage bags, or bottles to avoid any trouble. Have it out in a clear bag at the security check point. You are also allowed to have ice packs to keep it cold. 

     Awesome! Thank you!

  • Here's some advice that I received from a fellow bumper that travels and pumps.It's for traveling for business and pumping but some of the tips may apply:

    yep...here you go. i posted this the first time 6 years ago after my first business travel with #1. everything down to how I pack, the bag use, etc still holds exactly the same (and I know the bag I reference is still sold at wilson's leather b/c a friend liked it so much she got one a couple months ago).

    I don't like checking bags, so here's what I did. I purchased a professional ladies "bag" from Wilson's leather (about $50). It's 15" long, 12" tall and 5.5" wide. It also came with a small matching purse. Inside I am able to carry my laptop, my pump (not the whole PISA bag, just the pump), a square tupperware container (which inside has 2 sets of pump parts & tubing), 2 hardsided containers, BM storage bags, wallet, phone, magaize, black sharpie marker and a pashmina shawl. Inside my carry on suitcase, I pack very stragically - reusing pants, same shoes throughout the week, no hairdryer (use the hotel one); roll clothes instead of fold, and the purse. What I did for the milk was bring along a soft sided cooler (12 can size). At the hotel, I would fill it with ice 2x day (morning and evening) and kept the bags of milk inside on ice.  Works awesome. On the day of departure, I would pack my bag so that there is enough room that the cooler could sit inside my suitcase.  This is necessary since some TSA will require you to PROVE you can fit the cooler inside so you only effectively have 2 carryons. I position the cooler so that when I'm rolling my suitcase, the cooler is sitting right side up inside. You 'll need to pull the cooler out for TSA to inspect. Again I place the cooler inside the suitcase when it's time to board the plane (flight attendents can be a stickler about this, hence the reason I stick it inside); however when I'm on the plane, I quickly remove it before putting it in the overhead and place it under the seat in front of me along with the "professional bag".

    In my experience, the "medically" necessary fridge is so tiny (as in desk top book sized) that there's no way it can hold a week's worth of milk, let alone a couple days.

    Couple of other things....the pashmina - - I use not only to keep warm, but it works as a GREAT cover up when nursing in the restroom or elsewhere in public.

    I bring along 2 sets of gel ice packs and have the hotel restaurant freeze them the night before departure. I keep them in the cooler with ice until when I get to the airport. Before going through security, I dump all the ice out in the restroom sink and just leave the ice packs. After clearing security, I usually get more ice from the McDonalds or whatever, but have also used just the 2 frozen ice packs just fine.

    I keep all the milk in the storage bags and use the sharpie to record the date and oz info on the bag. Since I first pump into the hard containers, it makes it easy to know how much milk before putting into the bags. I keep all the milk fresh and then freeze once home so nothing spoils (I've always gone by the following: 8 hours room temp, 8 days in the fridge). I do carry the Medela cleaning clothes so that I can clean my pump parts. For two of my trips I knew I'd have access to a microwave, so I brought along the steam clean bags.

     

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