In general, breast milk is not recommended to be refrigerated, let alone frozen. However, because more working mothers need to return to work, it is inconvenient to feed their babies, or the mother has too much milk production, etc., they need to put the extra breast milk in the refrigerator to refrigerate or freeze it.
I. How to determine the deterioration of frozen breastmilk
For women who freeze their breastmilk in the refrigerator, when feeding their babies, they need to pay attention to identify whether their breastmilk is deteriorating or not, the identification methods include.
1, look at the surface: breast milk appears flocculent precipitation, indicating that the breast milk has deteriorated.
2, smell: open the breast milk smells sour, it indicates that the breast milk has deteriorated.
3. Observe the liquidity: if the breastmilk poured out is thicker and flows out more slowly, it indicates deterioration.
Second, breast milk preservation precautions
Breast milk preservation requires attention to the following aspects.
1. When storing breastmilk, label the storage container with the date, time and capacity.
2. Wash your hands before expressing or pumping, and disinfect the breast pumping accessories, milk storage bottles and milk storage bags.
3. Milk storage bags are single-use products and cannot be reused.
4. The storage volume of frozen breast milk per serving should not exceed 120 ml in general.
5. Since the volume of frozen breast milk will increase after freezing, it is recommended that the volume of breast milk should not exceed 3/4 of the capacity container.
How to heat frozen breast milk
Frozen breastmilk needs to be heated before feeding the baby, and the heating methods include the following two.
1. Scalding in water: put the breast milk container into warm water and soak it, and shake the container from time to time so that the breast milk is heated evenly.
2.Warm breastfeeder heating: set the temperature of the breastfeeder at 37℃ and heat the breast milk in water.
IV. Precautions for thawing breastmilk
When thawing frozen breastmilk, you need to pay attention to the following aspects.
1. When rewarming breast milk, the water level should not exceed the cap of the bottle or the seal of the breast milk bag to avoid contamination.
2. Do not put breast milk directly into microwave oven or open fire to avoid destroying the nutrients in breast milk.
3. Thawed breastmilk must be fed within half an hour and cannot be frozen again.
4. Thawed breastmilk will be layered, just shake it evenly.