Breastmilk Storage

[gbcc]

Ladies, thanks so much for clarifying. I have been using the cooler in the fridge and am quite comfortable doing that. gbcc - that's interesting. What state are you in? Do your state regs say why it has to be kept separate?

I live in NY. The reason I received was because the breast milk can hold transmittable diseases. We are supposed to treat it like blood and dirty diapers essentially. If it is in just a bag, it can leak and contaminate other items in the fridge. I have not researched the percentage of likelyhood, I just take it as word and treat it as it with universal precautions. They probably started it because there are some lazy people that if it leaked they would just rinse off the carrots and feed them to the kids!

Oh, and the same reason for medication. If it leaks it can be harmful to children and they can reach most items in a fridge if you are not paying attention

[Lucy]

Milk cubes!

I have a mom for whom I've watched 2 kids from birth up. She breastfed both. What she did was put the milk in ice cube trays, then fill gallon size ziplocs with the frozen cubes for me to use. We used the large mouth bottles so that the cubes would fit right in. Each cube was just about 1 ounce, so it was easy to measure. I would just plop in the appropriate number of cubes and warm it in a bottle warmer that she provided. I'd tell her when I was getting low on cubes and she'd bring more. She wrote the date on the ziploc. It can be frozen for 6 months. Put leftover bottles in fridge for up to 24 hours. Never use the microwave.

[Unregistered]

i am in NY and it doesnt say anything about keeping breast milk in a seperate container in the fridge, or a seperate fridge. only medication. could you tell me where in the regs it says that about breastmilk? i'd hate to get in trouble.....

[gbcc]

I don't know where in the regs it is written, I never looked it up. When I did my CACFP visit she asked where my containers for breast milk and medication would be stored so they were away from food. I had to show her my container that was labed refridgerated medication and just told her parents would supply the cooler for breast milk and that was sufficient. It was my staff nurse that gave me the reason why they had to be seperated.

[Unregistered]

oh, o.k.

you know whats funny....i hear about all these rules and all the hell other licensors put providers through. my licensore comes in, sits down at my table chats me up, and thats it. i just had a CACFP visit, and she never got up to look at anything. and if i have a question for her, she never knows the answer. i guess i should be glad i have it easy...

[misol]

You should thank your lucky stars ::

[Former Teacher]

For me, once I thought about the benefits for the child I got over the idea it was a bodily fluid from a women. I asked parents to bring a lunch cooler to store the milk in and then I would put that in my fridge. That way if anything leaked or spilled it would spill in the bag for mom to clean up not me!

That's how we did it!