Breast Pump & Breast Milk Storage

Bottle Feeding Baby Breast Milk

Usually around six weeks after you started breast feeding or if you’re not comfortable with feeding your baby in public, you should consider expressing breast milk to give to your baby by bottle.

Expressing breast milk to give to your baby provides your partner an opportunity to feed the baby and giving you some free time. It also help in getting your baby used to taking the bottle.

Expressing Breast Milk Using Breast Pump

Breast milk could be expressed by hand but it is more efficient using a breast pump. Pumping breast milk will keep your milk production stimulated. Once breast milk is not emptied regularly, this will send a signal to your body to stop producing milk.

Using a breast pump to expressed milk is easier and faster than expressing breast milk manually. Breast pumps are divided into three categories:

• Manually operated breast pump
• Batteries operated breast pump
• Electric operated breast pump

Electric pumps are easier to use and more effective than hand pumps. It also stimulates breast milk more effectively, but it is more expensive than hand pumps.

Regardless of the types of breast pumps you choose, when purchasing breast pump make sure that all parts of the pump that will contact the skin or milk can be removed and clean. Breast pump that are not clean properly may result in milk contamination.

Breast Milk Storage

Expressed breast milk can be kept in the fridge up to 24 to 48 hours (depending on the temperature of the fridge) without loosing much nutritional value. It can also be stored in a freezer for up to 4 months.

When storing breast milk, be sure to put the date to indicate when the milk was expressed.

Also, by expressing breast milk to give to your baby provides your partner an opportunity to feed the baby and giving you some free time as well as getting your baby used to taking the bottle.