iced breastmilk on plane?

solidstars

solidstars

Registered User
has anyone gone about doing this? how do you bring it on the plane? we're planning two short trips and both locations i've got relatives that can babysit, meaning I have to prepare/provide breastmilk whilst hubbie and i go out.

i can't miraculously pump that much on the day we arrive, so need to bring my stored iced cube breastmilk somehow...

appreciate tips, advice, etc. I have emailed our airlines too but wanted to hear from any mum's experiences...
 
I guess it depends on the length of your journey and how quickly you can get it into a freezer on arrival. I've taken it in an insulated contained filled with ice packs but that was on the basis that I was using it quickly after arrival so it didn't matter if it defrosted. You could try dry ice, seemingly it's possible but I couldn't find any here in HK. Mostly it will matter where you are going into, the UK as an example would not let you in with liquids in that form. I could leave NZ with it, Australia let me through with it (in transit) and I was able to bring it into HK.
 
Once milk is defrosted, as I understand it, you can not refreeze it. If you want to bring frozen milk, I would suggest storing up some now in milk storage bags in bigger quantities because a bigger chunk of iced milk is harder to melt then little ice cubes that would surely melt in the span of your plane trip no matter how cold the airplane is. Unless of course you will use your freezer stash soon after you arrive, then it doesn't matter if it is defrosted as long as it is still cold upon arrival, which it should be if you are only going to another country in Asia.
 
I've transported frozen milk from Taipei to Hong Kong. Basically I wrapped the frozen milk bags in newspaper, surrounded the milk bags with dry ice, put them in an insulated bag, put the insulated bags in a styrofoam box that was put inside a regular box to ship. The milk was all still frozen when we got home. Granted it was a very short trip but I think it could have easily lasted another 1-2 hours.

I've never purchased dry ice in HK but I would think that if you went to Ben & Jerry's or Haggen Dazz they might be able to tell you where you get buy dry ice since they pack it into the bags when you buy cartons.

Good Luck!
 
Have you considered taking fresh, cooled milk rather than frozen?

Fresh milk can be kept for up to seven days. This makes it much easier to deal with than defrosted milk which can only be kept for 24 hours. It is much easier to keep fresh milk cold than it is to keep frozen milk frozen.

Best wishes,
SARAH
 
wenyihsu said:
I've transported frozen milk from Taipei to Hong Kong. Basically I wrapped the frozen milk bags in newspaper, surrounded the milk bags with dry ice, put them in an insulated bag, put the insulated bags in a styrofoam box that was put inside a regular box to ship. The milk was all still frozen when we got home. Granted it was a very short trip but I think it could have easily lasted another 1-2 hours.

I've never purchased dry ice in HK but I would think that if you went to Ben & Jerry's or Haggen Dazz they might be able to tell you where you get buy dry ice since they pack it into the bags when you buy cartons.

Good Luck!
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Hi, just wondering if you checked it in then? Our two short trips are to 1)bkk, and 2) taipei. If this worked for you I may do as futurehkmom says and store in bags instead of bringing ice cubes...

-I can't pump there as I only get very little each time I pump, it won't be enough for baby when we leave him with my mom/etc.

-Sarah, if I bring 'fresh' milk, i would have to check it in right? So it can be kept up to 7 days? Defrosted iced milk up to 24 hours? How would i bring 'fresh milk' on the plane?
 
solidstars said:
Sarah, if I bring 'fresh' milk, i would have to check it in right? So it can be kept up to 7 days? Defrosted iced milk up to 24 hours? How would i bring 'fresh milk' on the plane?
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I'm sure there are other ways to take milk on the plane but I'd use a cool box with the blue cooling ice packs and the milk in bottles. Fill up any spare space with screwed up paper so that the box is full - it stays cooler this way. Then I'd check it in. The temperature in the hold is really cold but the ice box should keep the milk at a constant cold temperature.

Best wishes,
SARAH
 
I've brought 15 packs of frozen breast milk from Singapore to HK (around 3.5 hours flight time). First I put the frozen EBM into ziplocks then I packed the ziplocks in a Styrofoam box, put lots of ice packs in there (I have those gel-type ice packs and also DIY-ed some using water+ziplocks), sealed the box and checked them in.

It was fine, they were still 99% frozen on arrival (door to door about 7 hours). I would have gotten dry ice but ran out of time to get them.
 
thanks everyone, i might try what sarah suggested and bring 'fresh milk', and to save costs i'd probably do woodstock07's DIY water+ziplocks which i think are really creative!

I do have some gel ones but only a few.

thanks again
 
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