Table of Contents
Introduction
If you are a breastfeeding mom planning to spend time away from home with your baby, you know how to keep the pumped breastmilk in a fresh bottle in a diaper bag. However, if you intend to take a very long car ride, you will need to keep the pumped breastmilk frozen.
That is because you can keep breastmilk at the cooler end of room temperature for up to ten hours. However, if you are in a situation where you will be away for much longer than that with your baby, you must keep the breastmilk frozen. Let’s talk about how to transport frozen breastmilk.
How Can You Transport Frozen Breastmilk?
If you are going on a long road trip that requires you to be on the road for over ten hours, you need to know how to transport frozen breastmilk. You can look at getting dry ice; however, the recommendation to not go with that option is intense. Firstly, dry ice is expensive. Secondly, that will change the breastmilk’s taste, which means that your baby may not end up taking it. Is that a risk that you want to take? I would think not at all. That is why you do not want to go with this option.
The recommended option is to buy a cooler from a sporting goods shop online or in person. The cooler must have a leakproof zipper and a closed-cell rubber foam, ensuring that the milk remains frozen. You also will want to purchase reusable ice packs. The size of the cooler depends on how many ounces of breastmilk you want to pack up. For instance, if you plan to pack up over 300 ounces of breastmilk, you will require a larger cooler. If you don’t need to pack up that many ounces, you can buy a smaller cooler.
Once you have the cooler and reusable ice packs, you will want to prepare the breastmilk for proper packing. That means when you have the bags of expressed breastmilk in the freezer, lie it down flat. You want to make the bags thinner so you can keep more space open in the cooler. You may even be able to add more bags of breastmilk to it.
Before you pack the breastmilk into the cooler, place at least one reusable ice pack on the bottom and another on the top. That way, it will remain frozen during your traveling period. You will be amazed at how frozen the breastmilk bags remained once you are no longer in travel mode.
It is also advisable to pack the cooler with the bags of breastmilk with the icepacks in it the night before you go to your destination. Then place the cooler into the freezer overnight so you can grab it out of the freezer in the morning or the time when you plan to begin traveling. You do not want to do the packing at the last minute before you go.
However, there are times when you want to ship or mail out frozen breastmilk. One example is when you will be flying somewhere to stay with the inlaws or extended family. Or, maybe you have excess breastmilk that you want to donate to milk banks in other parts of the world. Let’s talk more about that.
How To Ship Frozen Breastmilk
If you are inquiring how to mail or ship frozen breastmilk, there is a process to it. When it comes to traveling, it is much better if you can transport it yourself. However, there are times when it is necessary to ship your breastmilk, such as donating to milk banks in other areas of the world. You can always inquire FedEx or UPS about how they keep breastmilk frozen.
Beware that shipping breastmilk through these couriers can be expensive. Not to mention, they use dry ice, which can alter the taste of it. That is why if you are looking to ship your milk, you will want to look into companies that specialize in transporting mother’s milk as they know how to do so correctly. And these companies know how to ship the milk frozen in a way where it does not change the taste. Contact your local La Leche League for recommendations of shipping companies that specialize in this. However, prepare yourself to spend a lot of money.
Conclusion
You know how to transport breastmilk‘ in a diaper bag for shorter trips that do not require you to freeze it. However, there are times when you do need to keep breastmilk frozen when you are embarking on trips that require more than ten hours of travel. That is not difficult to do as it requires you to use a cooler to buy from a sporting store. And you need several ice packs to keep in the cooler. That will help keep the breastmilk frozen.
There are situations where you have to rely on companies to ship your breastmilk, such as to milk banks in other world areas. The best thing to do is contact your local La Leche League to get recommendations of companies to use that will keep the milk frozen and maintain the taste.