How long does EBM keep after warming?

[ElphabaTheGreen]

DS's nursery are treating it like formula and chucking it one hour after it's been warmed. Is this right or does it have more 'legs'? I can't find anything on the NHS or Kellymom sites about shelf-life post-warming. Thanks!

[HappyAsASandboy]

I thought it was similar to formula/cows milk and should only be kept for an hour or two. It is likely that nurseries will go with the shorter time of any guidelines, as they won't want to risk anything (and don't have an interest in minimising wastage the same way you do).

I wouldn't keep warmed BM for more than a couple of hours at room temp. I think the guidelines for freshly expressed (and not warmed) BM is 4 hours, so can't imagine warmed lasting much more than 2 hours.

[RedKites]

Kellymom has some info here. However, as PP says, nursery may well be quite conservative about this. Could you give them EBM split into more 'portions' so that less gets wasted if it isn't drunk?

[ElphabaTheGreen]

Thanks for that link RedKites. Yes, I think I will start portioning out. I'd like to work out how much he actually takes in a feed first, though. Not that he took anything today from anybody so 5oz of mum's finest got dumped. I was hoping against hope someone on here would say it could've gone back in the fridge, so he could have refused had it tomorrow, but c'est la vie.

[psychedelic1]

I read on kellymom I think that you can reheat ebm twice. That's what I've been doing. If dd doesn't drink it at one sitting I put it back in the fridge and use it sometime in the next 24 hours. I also read a study that showed bacterial levels in twice heated milk were not any higher- I think it was linked to on kellymom too. Anyway dd seems fine with this. I think you can leave freshly expressed milk out for 8 hours at room temp too.