Expressing Milk

Expressing breast milk is simply squeezing the milk from your breasts. This can be carried out by hand or with a manual or electric pump. Once extracted, it can be stored in bottles or containers in the fridge or even in the freezer to put into solid foods.

Expressing milk is useful if you are going to be away from your baby for a few hours or a whole day. This way your baby can still benefit from the nutrients provided by breast milk. However, Kamillosan would recommend keeping expressing to a minimum, as it does not stimulate milk production as well as direct feeding.

Expressing breast milk can also be of benefit for mums as a way of relieving engorged breasts.

There are two ways of expressing milk; manually or with a pump. Manual expressing can be time consuming and takes practice. It is mores suitable for expressing every once in a while. Wash your hands before you start. Place your thumb 4-5cm away from your nipple and your fingers below so that they form a ´c´ around the areola, and squeeze your finger and thumb together, pushing your hand back against the chest wall, continuing this process in a circular motion around your areola. The squeeze will hurt if your finger and thumb are too close together. Collect the milk in a sterile, wide rimmed container.

Electric and manual breast pumps are faster and more efficient and more suitable for expressing over longer periods of time. To use an electric pump, you simply put a suction cup over your breast, turn on and let the pump to the work. It should take between 15mins to 45mins to pump both breasts. A good breast pump will mimic the sucking action of a baby and won't cause pain.

Storing breast milk

Breast milk can either be stored in plastic feeding bottles, with air tight lids or specially designed storage bags for storing milk. Label the bag with the date and pop it in the fridge or freezer. Keep the refrigerated milk at the back of the fridge, lower than 4oC within 3-4 days. Frozen milk can be stored for a week in an ice box or up to 6 months in a freezer no higher than -18°C. Thaw the milk by either placing the bottle/bag in a bowl of warm water or run it under a warm tap (do not use a microwave as this will kill the nutrients) and use within 12 hours. Throw away any milk that is left in the bottle after feeding your baby.