Brown girl in blue shirt smiling

12 Comments

  1. What an awesome experience! Thank you for sharing you experience. Glad everything went well. Major respect for having a home birth!

  2. I guess a home birth is a stress free setting unlike a hospital so it makes sense!

  3. I had the pleasure of watching my daughter and son go through this beautiful experience, and I would not cash that in for anything. To see God’s hand move, protect and teach was amazing, and the outcome was BUDDY-BUDDY. Thank you for sharing 🙂

  4. Home births are perfect examples of how God meant it to be from the beginning of time. Being present at my daughter and son-in-law’s home birth was truly AMAZING, and I’ll always hold that experience close to my heart. Thanks for sharing your journey to motherhood!

    1. I’m always glad to hear when others experience home births too. I hope they become more common place in the future. Thank you for reading!

  5. Hi. It so l interesting readying your journey. I want to do my self dry freeze to. Mostly because im far from usa and canada. And where i leave there is no company doing this. But i just have a question. How do you know the nutritional value of the breast milk, and how many scoops will you need for the bottle? And did you did any lab test for your milk just to make sure it was free of any bacteria after the process?

    1. I base the nutritional value of my breastmilk on the other scientific studies of human breastmilk. I do not have specific values for my own because I do not do send any away for testing after I process it in my freeze dryer. (I also don’t send any of my breastmilk away for testing before freeze drying either.)

      Reconstituting is often easiest to do going by serving size. If you freeze dry 16 ounces of breastmilk & your baby is drinking 4 ounce bottles, divide the amount of freeze dried milk powder into 4 equal portions. Then simply reconstitute each portion with enough liquid to make a 4-ounce bottle. If your baby is needing 8 ounce bottles, use 2 portions worth. Using small Mylar baggies is how I do this. Alternatively, you could store the full sum of your freeze dried milk in a larger vessel (make sure it’s airtight to avoid spoiling) & in this case, it’s very important to know the weight of the breastmilk before & after drying. You would then have a ratio to use when making bottles. Your breastmilk might weigh 16 ounces before drying & 4 ounces after drying. In this example, you would need a 3:1 ratio of liquid to powder or 12 ounces of liquid to the 4 ounces of powder to make 16 ounces of reconstituted breastmilk.

      To reduce the bacterial load, I use best practices like clean/sanitized workspaces, utensils, etc. I start with a very clean freeze dryer & loading trays. Minimal handling (before, during & after processing). Careful transfer from my Haakaa into the storage bags & maintaining optimal freezer temperatures while it’s stored in our freezer. I don’t store breastmilk in the door of the freezer because the temp in that part of the freezer fluctuates too much as the door is opened & closed. I don’t let freshly expressed milk sit out before cooling in the fridge or freezing. Clean & sterile utensils or scissors to open the pre-frozen breastmilk bags for loading onto the tray. After freeze drying, I do very little manipulation after it has been dried. If I use a blender or food processor to crush it into powder, those tools are all very clean beforehand & extremely dry. If not, I transfer dried pucks into clean & dry baggies where I can crush it down with my rolling pin.

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