can I reheat expressed milk?

[sabinar]

ok. this feels like it might be a stupid question, but I have to ask it regardless...

if I give my LO a bottle of expressed breastmilk that I've warmed up to room temp. for him and he doesn't finish it all, is it ok to put the remainder back in the fridge straight away and reheat later or do I need to throw out the left overs?

thanks for your help

you need to throw it out

bummer, I thought so. What a waste of all that hard expressing work. Will make him smaller bottles in future I think!

i read on kellymom that you could reuse - not sure on time limits though

EBM has properties in it that prevent it from spoiling so unlike formula & cows milk it can be ekpt at room temp for longer & can be reused/reheated for the next feed if necessary.

IMO it's a judgement call for the mum, but very easy to tell if the milk is safe to use by taste/smell (assuming you have done the same to freshly expressed so you know what that should taste/smell like )

www.kellymom.com/bf/pumping/reusing-expressedmilk.html

ah, Kellymom says: 'If baby does not finish milk at one feeding, it may be refrigerated and offered at the next feeding before it is discarded.'

We're only doing one bottle feed a day tho. I wonder if this means the very next feed, or the next bottle feed... (would be a difference of v many hours in my case)

hrm.

I have re-used itand ds3 was fine.

eh. x-post with terramum - her link is much better than mine and making me lean towards reusing (fortunately I popped it in the fridge just in case).

Hi,

I exclusively expressed (not able to bf directly) for my ds for nearly 7 months and it is true, you can reuse it at the next feed. Apparently, heating it up will destroy some of the antibodies and nutrients but it will not harm your baby.

As a general rule, breastmilk lasts in the fridge for much longer than people think and the best way of telling if it is still good is to smell/taste it. If it smells bad or tastes sour (if you are brave enough to taste it, some people aren't) then it isn't good. Chances are if there's something wrong your baby wouldn't drink it anyway.

If it was previously frozen then the rules change as many of the protective bacteria that kills germs will be killed in the freezing process. Therefore, thaw and use within 24 hours of thawing, and keep in the fridge.

Good luck!