To many breastfeeding mothers, breast milk is liquid gold. And this is not just because of its nutritional value and immunological properties for the baby.
It is also because of how much time mums spend hooked up to uncomfortable breast pumps to build their breast milk stash – to express enough breast milk for their babies, many mothers pump at work or into the wee hours.
Storage is also a big issue, with many finding creative ways to make space in their freezer or buying an extra freezer for their breast milk.
And then comes the heartache of having to throw out expired frozen breast milk, which has a use-by date of six to 12 months. Ditto if the baby rejects the breast milk because it tastes and smells different after freezing and thawing.
This is why mumpreneur Jolene Tan founded Wonderbewbz (say “wonder boobs”), offering breast milk freeze-drying services to mothers.
According to Tan and other such companies around the world, this process is said to extend the shelf life of breast milk to three years. It also makes it easier to store one’s breast milk stash without bulky freezers – and easier to offer to babies without the lengthy thawing process or bottle warmers.
HOW FREEZE-DRYING BREAST MILK WORKS
In the freeze-drying process, breast milk is removed from lactation storage bags while still frozen, placed on trays, and loaded into the freeze-dryer so that moisture can be drawn out of the milk.
The temperature is lowered to -30 to -40 degrees Celsius before the breast milk goes through a gentle heat cycle, then a round of freezing, followed by another gentle heat cycle, and so on. It can take two days for most of the moisture to be removed.