How is Breast Milk Warmed?

Under normal conditions, breast milk does not require heating. You can feed your baby with room temperature or cold breast milk. Still, many parents choose to warm up refrigerated or frozen breast milk, mainly for two common reasons. First, heating stored breast milk helps mix the layers of fat that tend to separate during storage. Second, some babies like to consume warm milk instead of cold. Therefore, in such cases, it becomes necessary to warm the milk. Knowing safe ways to warm breast milk can be helpful for parents who are feeding their babies stored breast milk.

What is the Ideal Temperature for Warming Breast Milk?

Experts recommend soaking the milk bottle or milk storage bag in warm water for a few minutes. The temperature of the water should be between 37 and 40 degrees. The ideal time to heat thawed milk is 20 minutes. Alternatively, you can use a bottle warmer to warm the milk. But if you do, it's very important to make sure that the temperature does not exceed 40 degrees. The milk should be warm to the touch. Avoid overheating breast milk as it alters its nutritional and immunological properties. If you accidentally overheat the breast milk, you can still cool it and feed the baby.

Methods of Warming Breast Milk

Here are some methods for warming chilled or frozen milk:

• Keeping the milk bag in warm running water: Place a tightly closed bag or breast milk bottle under the running tap for a few minutes until the bottle begins to heat up. Make sure the tap water is warm, but not hot. When you reach the desired temperature, shake the bottle or bag to mix the layers of oil. Although the method seems quick, it wastes a lot of water and it may not be comfortable to hold the bottle under the tap for a long time.
• Keeping in a hot water bowl: Boil the water in a pan or pot until it reaches 37-40 degrees. Then turn off the stove. Transfer the tightly closed milk bottle or bag to the bowl. Wait a few minutes. If you notice that the milk is getting hot, you can remove it from the water. The milk should be neutral or slightly warm, but not hot.
• Using a bottle warmer: The bottle warmer is an electrical appliance suitable for warming breast milk. Simply place a milk bottle on the warmer and select the desired heating setting. The milk will be warm for the time you want it and is ready to be fed in one to three minutes. However, overheating is a problem that often occurs with bottle warmers. For this reason, you should not forget to check the user manual of the device.

Additionally, have a food thermometer available to check the temperature of the milk before feeding it to the baby. You can also apply all these methods for frozen breast milk.