Hey, hello all.
Iam a software engineer working in Pune. I have a 3 months old kid. I will be joining my duties from november. I read somewhere that its OK if we take out the breast milk ans store for 8hrs, to feed the baby in mamma's absence. Wanted to know is it safe to take out breast milk using pumps that are available in the market, some say it can cause contamination. Plzz reply. vs_iyer replied. Hi Deepa,

I live in USA and it is very common here for working mothers to express milk using pump at work. I fed my baby like this for 5 months and she is 8 months now. You should have a private place at work to express milk. YOu need to refrigerate it immediately. YOu can carry this pump milk home in a ice box and keep it refrigerated. This milk next day can be use for your baby. However there are some precautions you should take to prevent contamination :
(1) Buy a pump that is small to
(1) You can refrigerate milk for 24 hours. If it is to be kept for longer time then you should keep it in freezer.
(2) Buy small 6 ounce bottles with good latch to store the milk and label them like morning afternoon evening - so that you know what milk to be used first.
(3) YOu should express every three hours to match with your baby's feeding cycle.
(4) Before giving it to baby take real hot water in a cup and keep the milk bottle to warm it. Shake it and test the temerature. Put a drop on your wrist and you should not feel it hot or cold. That means it is at body temperature.
(5) You should not heat milk in microwave as it can have heat pockets to hurt baby.
(6) Keep storage bottles and feeding bottles separate so that you take out only required amount of milk in the feeding bottle.

This is because you should not reuse the milk that has been touched by baby..saliva causes bacteria to develop. That is true for any milk or any thing baby eats. So if there is leftover milk in the feeding bottle you can use it within an hour and then discard it.

But if there is some milk left in the storage bottle that you have already warmed - you can refrigerate it again.

(8)You should buy electric pump - double extraction. I used medella delux pump. You can search on medella site and search for a similar product in India if medella is not available. is the site address.

(9) Also there is lot of information avaialble to experess milk and its storage and usage on the net - you can clear all your doubts.