Can i reuse expressed breast milk

You can add freshly pumped breast milk directly into a bottle of room temperature breast milk as long as the previously collected room temperature breast milk has not expired.

Fresh breast milk can stay out at room temperature for up to four hours. If you have a few pumping sessions within that time span and wish to combine the milk that you pumped, you can. You can then choose to store the milk or use it for feeding. When you add breast milk from different pumping sessions to a bottle of room temperature breast milk, you should consider all the breast milk in the container to be as old as the oldest pumped milk.

So, if you add new breast milk that you just pumped to milk that you pumped three hours ago and left out at room temperature, the entire container, including the fresh breast milk is now three hours old. You can add more breast milk to a container of refrigerated breast milk, but it should not be freshly pumped breast milk that is still warm at body temperature. If you'd like to add your most recently pumped fresh milk to a bottle of already refrigerated milk pumped on the same day, you need to cool it down.

First, place the fresh breast milk into the refrigerator for 30 minutes to an hour. Then, once it is cool, you can add it to the other container of refrigerated milk.

If you have defrosted breast milk and fresh breast milk at about the same temperature, you can put them together in the same bottle to feed to your baby. However, freshly expressed breast milk is more beneficial than previously frozen breast milk, so it's better for your baby to get every drop of your fresh breast milk.

It might not be as convenient, but it's better to give the fresh breast milk on its own first. Then, finish the feeding with the defrosted milk. This way, fresh breast milk will not be wasted. If there's any leftover at the end of the feeding, it will be the defrosted breast milk that gets thrown away. You should not add your freshly expressed breast milk to a bottle of defrosted breast milk if you plan to store it. Once you thaw out frozen breast milk, you cannot freeze it again.

You must use it within 24 hours or throw it away. If you'd like to store your fresh breast milk, you should keep it separate from any milk that you have already thawed. You should not add warm, fresh breast milk to already frozen breast milk. Warm milk can cause frozen milk to thaw out. However, if you cool the fresh milk, you can then add it to the frozen milk as long as you pumped it on the same day.

Place your fresh breast milk in the refrigerator until it is cold. Then, add the cold, refrigerated milk to the bottle of already frozen milk. This process is called layering. Combining the breast milk from different expressions on the same day can be convenient, especially if you're only getting a small amount of breast milk at each session. Filling up one container instead of having a small amount in many containers just makes sense. After that, it may not be, and so should be discarded.

Per the CDC :. Once breast milk is brought to room temperature or warmed after storing in the refrigerator or freezer, it should be used within 2 hours.

Either rewarming or leaving it at room temperature is fine — whichever works best for you. Per Kellymom :. We do know that for any food, refrigeration slows bacteria growth. Milk storage guidelines do not include any warnings against rewarming milk, and many moms rewarm with no issues. But unfortunately, you cannot refreeze thawed breast milk, and you need to use it within 24 hours of when it has finished thawing not from when the power outage started or you took it out of the freezer.

If your breast milk still has ice crystals, it is considered safe to put back in the freezer. Can I take my breast milk out of the refrigerator and let it gradually warm up, instead of using a bottle warmer?

Again, per the CDC :. So you have two hours once your milk comes to room temperature to feed it to your baby.

How long does it take breast milk to come to room temperature when sitting out? I love experiments, so I tested it out. Email Address. What's this? Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity. Breastfeeding Information for Families. Related Topics. Diabetes Nutrition. Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website. Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website.

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