[zomigi]

I am going to a conference with my DD and my parents, who will be watching her for some portion of three days. I won't be able to pump enough during my time there to have enough to feed her, so I'll need to take a good amount of frozen breastmilk along with me. This article on traveling with breastmilk was very helpful, but I'm still confused about how it will work in my case.

I can pack the breastmilk in an insulated cooler in my checked luggage per the guidelines in that article, but I'm not clear if it will still be frozen, or close to it, when I arrive at the hotel. I'm flying from Chicago to San Francisco, and once you factor in the drive time to and from the airports and time spent waiting in the airports, my milk will have been in the cooler for at least 7 hours, and possibly longer. Will it still be frozen after this amount of time?

If it is not, what do I do with it? My hotel room will have a mini fridge with a freezer compartment inside it. Is it ok to put thawed milk in the freezer compartment and use it over the next three days?

Thanks for any advice you can give for my situation.

 

[gagin37]

i recently traveled 12.5 hours by car with a smallish cooler of frozen milk in ziploc bags. we packed it in ice (about 6lb was what fit in the cooler) and left it shut. it was all still frozen solid when we arrived. i had to break the ice off with a hammer actually. when i ship to my milk recipient i pack her milk in dry ice in a Styrofoam cooler.

 

[zomigi]

Thanks for sharing your experience!

 

[crystaldawn]

The last time I shipped milk it was in a cooler packed with techni ice and was still frozen solid when it arrived 24 ish hours later.

 

[gini1313]

Probably it will still be frozen, but just FYI... You can not refreeze defrosted milk. If it is still "slushy" it still counts as frozen and can be refrozen, but if it is defrosted completely, put it in the fridge and use it up.