Proper Handling of Breast Milk
Breast milk is as precious as it comes, which is why handling breast milk should also be done in a hygienic manner. Before expressing milk, you must wash your hands well with soap and water. However, if these are not available for the time, using a hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol may be enough.
There are different ways to pump or express breast milk. As its name implies, hand expression requires the use of hands to squeeze and press the breast to get milk. As such, this requires you to have clean hands to avoid contaminating the milk expressed.
In contrast, those using devices such as a manual breast pump or an electric breast pump should ensure that their respective devices are also clean and sanitized as well. Although these provide faster and more efficient pumping and expressing methods, these also make your breasts susceptible to germs and infections if they are not properly cleaned, dried, and sanitized.
