NICU Parents Guide for Pumping and Breastfeeding

Collecting and Storing Your Breastmilk

Collecting Your Breastmilk Obtain containers and labels from your baby’s nurse in the NICU. Wash your hands before handling your breast pump and storage containers. Pumpdirectly into the storagecontainers supplied to you, only the milk for this pumping session will be placed in these containers. You will pump into new containers at the next pumping session. Write the date and time, the milk was collected, on the Label supplied, and place it on each container of milk obtained. Breastmilk that is not labeled will not be accepted in the NICU. Place the collected milk in the refrigerator if you plan to be at the hospital within 2-4 hours, if not put it in the freezer. Always store the milk in the back of the freezer or refrigerator. (This is where the temperature is the coldest.)

Transporting Your Breastmilk Use frozen cold packs in a cooler for frozen milk and ice for milk from the refrigerator. Place Milk in an insulated bag or cooler with a frozen cold pack or ice. The farther you live from the NICU, the more likely it is that you will have to pad the inside of the cooler with extra cold packs or ice to keep frozen from thawing. Frozen milk must be kept frozen and cold milk, from the refrigerator must be kept cold.