Expressing breast milk

It’s not something you think about automatically when you prepare yourself for breastfeeding for the first time. But for many mothers, expressing their breast milk is part and parcel of the process, almost as much as feeding itself.

In fact, there are many reasons why you might need to express your breast milk during the period you are nursing your baby.

These include:

To provide your baby with nourishment while you are away for a few hours or when you return to work.
To relieve engorgement (when too much milk present in the breast can lead to them becoming excessively swollen, hard or painful).
To prevent your milk supply from drying up if for medical reasons you can’t feed your baby temporarily, during illness (yours or your baby’s) or when introducing solids takes away your baby’s appetite.

How?

There are two methods of expressing breast milk: by hand and by pump.

Expressing by hand

Position your naked breast over a bowl to catch the milk.
Support your breast with the flat of one hand underneath and the flat of the other hand on top, then begin to exert a gentle massaging action with your thumbs.
Continue the pressure using the flat of your hands, gently but firmly moving your fingers towards the areola.
Squeeze your thumbs and forefingers together and push backwards as your squeeze.
The milk should drip or spurt out of your nipples and fall into the bowl below.

Expressing by pump

Although expressing by hand is the ‘natural’ way to do it, using a breast pump is a much easier, faster and more efficient means of expressing milk. Breast pumps are either manual, electrical or battery operated.

Battery and electric pumps tend to be more expensive, yet they are also more effective and can be worth their weight in gold if regular expressing is going to be part of your daily life. Once the cup is in place, the hard work is done for you, meaning your hands don’t tire as they would during manual expression. Although it might seem like you’re being ‘milked’ like a cow, the feeling is not unpleasant.

Electric breast pumps usually offer more options than manual pumps, such as adjustable suction levels, but they are mains operated, which may limit your travel options – this is where battery operated pumps come in.

Manual pumps involve physically pressing and depressing a lever by hand, but although slower, they do the job just as well and are considerably cheaper to buy.

We recommend: Philips AVENT Comfort Single Electric Breast Pump and Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature Manual Breast Pump

Storing expressed breast milk

Breast milk should be stored in sterilised plastic containers (such as feeding bottles) or in specialised breastfeeding Ziploc bags.
It can be stored at room temperature for up to six hours (less in hot weather).
Alternatively, it can be stored in a sterilised plastic container in the fridge (at four degrees C or colder) for up to five days.
Breast milk can also be frozen (again in a sterilised plastic container or bag), at -18 degrees C or colder, for up to six months.

If freezing your milk, do it as soon as possible after expressing, and leave a small gap at the top of each container, as the milk will expand during the freezing process. Frozen breast milk should be defrosted in the fridge, then used up within 12 hours (never refreeze defrosted milk). Watch out for tears in plastic bags, as that would mean the milk has been contaminated and shouldn’t be consumed.

If you are expressing at work, make sure to bring a sterilised bottle with you and a cool bag to store it in during the journey home.

Top Tip

If you need to build up a store of breast milk for future use (perhaps if you’re going away for a few days), use one breast to feed your baby, then use the other to express, to keep the balance even.