Posted by Anne Casey on July 06, 1999 at 17:31:12:
In Reply to: Re: Breastfeeding your premature baby - a Preemie-L FAQ posted by Caryn mom to Shey (32 wker) on July 04, 1999 at 05:34:32:
Hi Caryn,
Thanks for your comments. The pumping for 5 minutes thing is for the first day or two before there's any milk produced, mainly to collect any colostrum. Once the milk has started, even if it's only a very small amount, you need to pump for longer, until there's nothing left.
We were conservative about the storage times for frozen milk. I checked quite a few official recommendations and used the shortest of them, just to be safe. Some Australian NICUs don't allow the use of frozen milk at all because they believe freezing affects the nutritional quality of breastmilk. However, Nursing Mothers Association of Australia supports the use of frozen breastmilk and we used their recommended times for storage.
I don't know why the recommended times vary so much from source to source.
best wishes
Anne