is it ok to reheat breast milk?

[carolondon]

That is it really. Sometimes DS will not take a bottle from DH, especially if i am around. The milk then gets wasted so is it ok to put it back in the fridge to reheat later on?

Breast milk can be left at room temperature for a long time

Around 7 or 8 hours

So no need to refrigerate

good info here

I thought it was 4-5 hours, but yeah it can be left out for a while :-) I store milk in 2oz portions to avoid this problem

(but if you freeze it then that would be a pain during a feed)

Thanks for the replies. That was a useful link ruby.

If your baby has sucked on the bottle with the breast milk even just a bit it needs to be thrown. Milk is the perfect breeding ground for the bacteria found in saliva.

I used to leave the milk in bottles of 2oz so that the wastage would be reduced.... not sure why your DH would ever be offering milk though if you are around. If its previously frozen milk def needs to be chucked after being reheated. Perhaps if its not previosuly frozen and you quickly chill it again would be ok to offer again.

My dh had a policy of only offering EBM if I was out and DS was demanding to be fed. DS never wasted under these circumstances.

What wannabeglam said - if it's in the bottle and the baby has touched the teat, even if he hasn't sucked, then you need to throw it out.

The link from kellymom looks a bit different to what my midwives told me - they said expressed milk could be kept for 1 hour at room temperature or 5 days in the fridge.

BTW don't keep it in the door of the fridge - that's the warmest part.