How long can you keep heated breast milk for?

[Miss_impatient]

Grrrr... Austin was a bit fussy around 4.15. It had been four hours since his last feed so I assumed he was hungry. Turned out he was just needy, fell asleep right in my arms.

Unfortunately, already sent OH to warm some breast milk! I'm now looking at 5oz of hard expressed breast milk gutted. Midwife said I can only use it for an hour after but I've had a bit of a Google and some sites suggest that its fine to keep it out for the full six hours or even re-refridgerate! What would you do?

 

[kumber]

Once it's warmed I'm afraid it's use for an hour and then dump, by leaving it out or cooling to reheat later it's risking some quite serious bacterial growth.

 

[MrsT2011]

I'm pretty sure you can reheat breast milk but just once. Check on the Kelly's mom website it's really helpful for things like that x

 

[Miss_impatient]

Kelly's mom website suggests its ok. Basically there are no studies on it but breast milk contains live cells that kill bacteria and many people do reuse the milk. We decided to go for it on the basis there was nothing to contaminate the milk as the bottle hadn't touch baby's lips. I'll probably panic all night now ha!