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Expressed breast milk

The short definition

Expressed breast milk is breast milk taken out by hand or with a pump, so it can be stored and given to bub later. By anyone.

What it actually means

It is still breast milk. The only thing that has changed is that it is in a container instead of in the breast. That is the one fact behind the whole term, and it is the one a dad most often gets wrong.

It is often shortened to EBM, which is how it will be written on a label in a fridge or on a hospital whiteboard.

  • It can be given by more than a bottle. Expressed breast milk can be fed by bottle, cup or spoon. The same sterilising and storage rules apply whichever is used.
  • There are reasons to express and they are practical ones. The usual ones are bub being sick or preterm, and mother and baby being temporarily separated. Also returning to paid work, needing to increase supply, and uncomfortably full breasts.
  • Storage has rules, and they are the part Dadda can own. Storing expressed milk at home:
  • Wash hands thoroughly.
  • Refrigerate or freeze the milk after expressing.
  • Use fresh milk whenever possible.
  • Freeze milk that will not be used within 2 days.
  • Date the container when it is collected.
  • Use the oldest milk first.

Freshly expressed milk going into the fridge or freezer goes into a new container, not into milk already stored.

Dating the container and rotating the oldest first is a job that needs no decisions and saves a lot of milk. It is a good one to take over.

Where Dadda will hear it

In the hospital, as "EBM", on a label. Then at home, every time someone opens the freezer.

Also in this app. The feed tile in Dadda's Log asks what kind of feed it was, and expressed breast milk is one of the answers.

Not to be confused with

  • Formula. Expressed breast milk is breast milk. A bottle does not tell you which one is in it, and that is exactly why the label matters.
  • Expressing. Expressing is the act. Expressed breast milk is what comes out of it.

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