Taking breast milk through airport security - only if your baby is with you

[JayPee631]

My son is 5 1/2 months old and I have started back at work part time. I'm still EBF, so when I'm at work, I express milk for him. I had to travel to Edinburgh for the day today, so took my breast pump, bottles and cool bag with me.

On my return late this afternoon, my bag was pulled at security - they removed the expressed breast milk and told me that I could not take it through because my baby was not with me. I offered to taste the milk, but they said that it didn't matter whether I did that or not - no baby, no milk. They took the milk and "disposed of it".

I was furious and gutted to lose the precious milk, but also disgusted that this is the situation. Am I being over-tired and over-sensitive?

I don't know what the rules are, but totally understand why you'd be upset at your milk being thrown away. I think that you should have been let through with it - how much did you express ? Could you have put them In bottles in less than 100 ml? (sorry, don't travel much anymore so can't remember the rules!)

oh my god, i would be fuming!! it takes me AGES to pump an ounce of milk so for someone to ditch it who ever they may be would enrage me!!
my relative used to work for BA for 27 years and even she used to rage about the airport security and how over the top it has gone these days.
i can understand why security is strict dont get me wrong but i totally empathise with you!
i wonder if there are measures you can take to take milk through without the baby like a docs note or something (i have no idea)in case it happened again?

that's disgusting!

Can you find anything online about policies for this?

It was a day's worth of expressed milk!!

I can't find anything specific online - I guess they were treating the milk as a general 'liquid' and would not discuss it with me. I asked to see a manager, who said that it was "legislation".

Seriously let it go. Security are a nightmare. I worked at an airport for nearly a decade and discovered its not worth the argument.

I am
Imagine how very pissed off you are though!

Could they not have let you put your bag in the hold instead, rather than disposing of it?

Talk about the most STUPID rule ever! Why the fuck ( sorry for swearing but this makes me soooooo mad!) would you be hauling expressed milk around if your baby was WITH you! If your baby was with you then you could just feed them and there'd be no need to express, would there?

Chipmonkey: Couldn't agree more. Apparently the 'legislation' doesn't account for working mothers.

Sorry that happened to you JayPee - could you speak to someone at the Airport Authority about this? I am sure there is dispensations for bfing mothers to take BM home with them but I can't find them at the moment - sorry!

Even more bizarrely a mum in Hawaii had to pump milk to take her breastpump and the bottles on board!