* Warming Breast Milk: Do you need to warm breastmilk, how to do it, and using a bottle warmer

Breastfeeding is such a simple way to feed your baby, but when you need to express milk, it throws up a number of questions. This article aims to help you understand how to heat breastmilk for your baby.

Some babies are happy to take the milk directly from the refrigerator, so before you get into the habit of warming the milk, it is a good idea to try it out with your baby.

If you do choose to heat the milk, please remember that it only needs to be heated to body temperature. Overheating the milk will risk burning your baby, and compromises the quality of the breast milk.

Thawing And Warming Frozen Breast Milk

Breast milk that has been removed from the freezer, but does not need to be used immediately, can be kept in the refrigerator to thaw until you need to use it. You can then heat it up as you would refrigerated breast milk.

If you need to use the frozen breastmilk immediately it is OK to heat it up from frozen. The best way to do this is to use a bowl of warm water. Place the bottle / bag or frozen breast milk in the bag and allow the heat from the water to transfer to the milk. Test the water every few minutes as it will cool rapidly and need replacing a few times. Bottle warmers are not designed for heating frozen milk, and the extended time required to bring the milk up to the correct temperature may burn out the heating element.

Warming Refrigerated Breast Milk

There are three ways to heat up cold breastmilk:

1. Use a regular bottle warmer

Baby bottle warmers work by using a small heating element to surround the bottle with heat, and gently bring the milk up to the correct temperature for feeding (similar to body temperature).This gentle heating process is suitable for warming breast milk.

2. Place the bottle in a bowl of warm water

You may need to replace the water part way through as it will cool quickly.

3. Hold the bottle under a warm running tap

Be careful not to let the water touch the sterile bottle nipple as this will contaminate it.

Do NOT be tempted to use boiling hot water in a bowl to heat up the bottle. There is a risk of the bowl being toppled over and scalding someone. There is also a chance this will cause the milk to overheat, destroying some of its nutrients.

NEVER heat your baby's milk in a microwave:

• Microwaves heat unevenly, and can create pockets of scolding hot milk. Even in you test the milk, it may feel safe, but a small quantity of very hot milk could still pass through the nipple.
• If the microwave overheats the milk it will reduce the nutritional value of the milk.

The Centre for Disease Control has some essential advice on the storage and use of breast milk (opens in a new window).

If you would like to find out more about using a bottle warmer, take a look at the 439 customer reviews on the First Years BabyPro bottle warmer (opens in this window, please use right click to open in a new window). The reviews contain helpful information about this product, but also other brands of bottle warmer, and how to use them.