The main societies in terms of health recommend that a baby be fed exclusively with breast milk during the first six months of life. As this recommendation has nothing to do with the maternity leave of women, which ends at 16 weeks, in a clear sign that society is very badly mounted because it happens Olympic (how bad to use this term these days) of welfare of babies, many mothers start working and they resort to milk extraction so that whoever stays with him will feed him.
It is often the case that many mothers take out the milk and leave it in the fridge, with doubts about how many properties it will lose once it is there, and without knowing how much time they can have it in the refrigerator without spoiling it. There are those who talk about two days, I had understood that three to date, and I have read articles that talk about more than five days. A study conducted in the US try to dispel the doubt to explain how long can breast milk be in the fridge.
Data about the study
The study was carried out in the North Shore University Hospital from Manhasset, in New York, where they analyzed 36 samples of milk from mothers with one month old babies admitted to the neonatal ICU and the objective was to know what the recommendations they should give to the mothers once they knew how the milk behaved from the moment they put it in a refrigerator.
They took all the samples and put them in a refrigerator at a temperature of 4ºC, analyzing them at zero hour (without getting them into the fridge, of course), at 24, 48, 72 and 96 hours. In each analysis they looked at the pH, the number of white cells, the amount of maternal immune system proteins, the number of beneficial fatty acids, the amount of fat and the amount of proteins.
Results of the study
They observed that there was hardly any change in the colon counts of Gram-negative bacteria, or in the amount of lactoferrin and fat. Gram-positive bacteria and the number of white blood cells decreased slightly, the pH and total proteins decreased, and the concentration of free fatty acids increased.
However, the changes were so slight in all the variations that the researchers considered that the integrity of chilled breast milk was preserved. That's why they concluded that Freshly extracted milk from a woman can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 96 hours, Or what is the same, 4 days, without losing properties. As they did not study the milk after those 4 days, there remains the question of how many days it will really endure without it starting to lose properties or its consumption is not recommended.
