Pumping and storing breastmilk provides your baby with all the benefits of breastmilk during your time apart. Yet, there are storage guidelines to preserve its freshness for as long as possible.
Defrosted breastmilk can be stored in the fridge for up to 24 hours. After 24 hours, it should be consumed or discarded.
One way is to freeze it, but freezing breast milk means you’ll need to defrost it. So, you take it out of the freezer and thaw it under some warm running water or in a bowl of warm water.
After the breast milk has defrosted, it may still not be time for your baby’s next feed, and so you place the bottle in a fridge or mini fridge.
This makes you question whether this can alter the milk’s nutritional content or consistency. It also makes you wonder how long does defrosted breastmilk last in the fridge.
You can store defrosted breastmilk in the fridge for up to 24 hours.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommends placing defrosted breastmilk in the fridge for up to 24 hours. This is providing you store the milk bottles away from the fridge’s door. The best place would be in the back of the fridge, preferably on a bottom shelf where it’s colder.
It’s important to mention that you should never refreeze breastmilk. If any defrosted milk is leftover after a feeding, you can place it back in the fridge for no longer than two hours. After that, it must be discarded.