International Travel for Work and Pumping

Re: International Travel for Work and Pumping

• lovesclimbing member

  March 2018 edited March 2018

  Honestly, I know this isn't what you want to hear, but I'm not sure it's going to be possible. You may have to pump and dump. 
  
  You're going to need to freeze the milk while you're gone and keep it frozen while traveling back. I don't know how that will be possible. That's a long flight and even with cold packs and such, I doubt the milk is going to stay frozen. 
  
  Also, even if you're within the window where milk can be refrigerated before being frozen, you're going to have a hard time keeping it at fridge temps for 11 to 12 hours and probably much more than that with layovers and such with cold packs. 
  
  I think the easiest thing is to pump and dump while you're there and just take the hit to your stash. That's what the stash is for after all. 
  
  ETA: more detail

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• meggyme member

  March 2018

  Idk if it works in other countries, but I recently heard of a service called milk stork. They basically ship your milk home for you so you don’t need to worry about taking it on a plane.
  
  If that doesn’t work for you, I agree with PP that it might not be feasible to ensure the safe temperature of your milk while traveling. And as painful as it is, it will probably be much less stressful to not have to worry about it going bad on your flight home.

  DD1: June '16 DD2: March ‘19 :::: Married since 2011 :::: USN Wife ::::

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• lovesclimbing member

  March 2018

  @meggyme, interesting, I'd never heard of that before!
  
  I was just googling it, and, OP, they will only ship within the US. They do provide cooler carrying products that you can buy and haul your milk yourself. They say it will stay refrigerated for 60 hours. They do not keep things frozen, so you would likely have to pump and dump the first few days and then only keep what is within the refridgerated window.  
  
  Potentially, if you called in advance, hotels will let you keep your milk in their freezer, but you'd still have the problem of getting it home while keeping it frozen. I have taken frozen products before (meat) with me as checked baggage and shipped it as cargo, but that was a large quantity (the more there is, the longer it will stay frozen), and it was only for a two hour plane flight. When I have shipped meat as cargo, they keep it in their freezer up until shipment, but they can't keep it frozen during flight. 
  
  You could always call different shippers and see what your options are for if they can keep stuff frozen during flight. It's probably not cheap though, and they may not offer that to individuals/for small quantities (as opposed to grocers and such). 

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