How to Properly Express and Store Breast Milk

Breastfeeding an important, personal decision many mothers make. Breast milk contains many qualities not easily duplicated in formulas. It is easier for the baby to digest and breastfeeding creates an intimate bonding time for both mother and child.

Even the most avid breastfeeding mother has occasions where she may need to be separated from her baby. Since many women do not wish to supplement with formula, pumping and storing their breast milk will be necessary.

Making the decision to express breast milk for future feedings comes with many questions. How do you properly pump breast milk? How should it be stored? How long is expressed breast milk good?

There are two ways that breast milk can be expressed-manual expression using your hands or by using a pump.

Before expressing milk, either manually or by pumping, always make sure to wash your hands with hot soapy water.

Manual expression of milk is done with your hands. You start by placing a warm towel on breasts to stimulate milk flow and milk "let-down" reflex. Using a gentle circular motion to roll hands forward away from the chest. Release and repeat going around the areola. This should take between three and five minutes. Repeat with the other breast. The more experience that you gain in manual expression, the quicker you can collect the milk.

Using a pump is the choice of many breastfeeding mothers. There are many pumps to choose from including hand pumps, battery operated pumps, and electrical hospital grade pumps.

Hand pumps are usually inexpensive, but some do not work very well. Three different kinds of manual pumps are cylinder, squeeze-handle, and rubber-bulb models.

Battery operated pumps are light-weight and can be used with one hand. The drawback of using a battery operated pump is that you have to keep batteries on hand and the amount of suction changes as battery power decreases.

Electric pumps are hospital grade. These have suction and cycling controls to allow for comfortable expression of milk. Electric pumps do the best job of completely emptying breasts.