You may want to express or pump breast milk and store it if you are going back to work, to allow other family members to feed your baby, or just to have on hand when you’re away from your baby. Whatever the reason, you should learn how to properly store breast milk. The following are general guidelines for safely handling and storing breast milk:
- Wash your hands before expressing or handling your milk.
- Use only clean containers to store expressed milk. Use collection containers specific for the purpose of storing human milk. Don't use ordinary plastic bags or formula bottle bags for storing milk.
- Freshly expressed milk can remain at room temperature for up to four hours.
- Use refrigerated milk within 48 hours.
- Freeze milk if you will not be using it within 24 hours. Frozen milk is good for at least three months
