Prepare Ahead! How To Protect Your Stash Of Frozen Breast Milk
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Last weekend when the power went out without warning, the sound of panic bells and a ticking clock started playing in my mind. You see, as a breastfeeding mom, I’m not very lacto-generous. I make just about enough for my daughter to eat daily, but not much more.
So it’s taken me two solid months to stock up in the freezer only enough breast milk to feed her for about five days. And the thought of losing all that hard work in just a matter of hours made me want to ugly cry. Literally. As precious hours ticked away, the milk wasn’t the only thing melting down.
According to the CDC, if you leave the doors closed, items in the refrigerator are considered salvagable for four hours without power. Items in the freezer are good for 24 hours if it’s half-full, and up to 48 hours if it’s completely full.
But breast milk is another story. As long as frozen breast milk still has ice crystals in it, then it is still considered frozen and safe to either use or return to a working freezer.
But how do you know how long the power was out unless you were home when it happened? How do you know how much the breast milk thawed before power was restored and it refroze? And are you really willing to take your chances with something so critical to your baby’s health?
And then I remembered a hack I learned about some time ago but had since forgotten.
Behold…
THIS was still in my freezer. It’s just a small cup of water, frozen, with a quarter laid on top. Placed there who knows how long ago. But critically valuable to me in this moment.
It is so simple to do, takes up hardly any extra space, and tells me how thawed things in the freezer became while the power was off.
Because if the water had thawed enough for the quarter to break the surface and sink, it would be refrozen inside or on the bottom of the cup.
And if you wanted to be super accurate, you could do the same with an ounce or two of breast milk in a cup with a penny or dime on top.
Of course, it’s probably not recommendable to reuse frozen breast milk left exposed to freezerburn. So you’d have to be willing to sacrifice those precious ounces of your liquid gold.
Thankfully, that day our house was only without power for a little more than 12 hours, during which the freezer door was never opened. And that quarter was still on top of the cup of frozen ice, barely indented.
And my breast milk stash was salvaged.
What’s the craziest thing you’ve done to save your milk supply? Let’s continue the conversation in the comments below.
