Should you be traveling with fresh breastmilk or frozen milk? (Spoiler: you can do BOTH!) Let's talk about it!
Tip #1 -- Plan ahead.
Before you leave for your trip, try your best to calculate how much breastmilk you will pump on your trip and will need to bring home. This will enable you to come prepared with coolers, ice packs, and whatever you are going to need. For short trips, I rely heavily on my Ceres Chiller. For longer stays, I always pack a few Sarah Wells Cooler bags.
- If you’re interested, use Bemybreastfriend15 at checkout for 15% off at cereschill.com
- Use Mybreastfriend15 for 15% off your order at Sarah Wells Bags.
Tip #2 -- Consider the duration of your trip.
Fresh breastmilk is safe for up to 4 days when kept at appropriate temperatures. If you trip is going to be longer than 4 days, you'll want to be prepared to freeze some of that milk.
Tip #3 -- Planning for TSA.
If you are flying and know you'll be navigating TSA, I highly recommend traveling with frozen breastmilk. It's SO MUCH EASIER. That being said, yes, you can travel with fresh milk, but it's a little trickier and depends on the TSA agent. If you choose to bring fresh milk through TSA, be sure to tell the agent that you have liquid breastmilk with you. They will probably request to see it, may run it through a scanner of some kind, but they should not be dipping anything in your breastmilk.
For more helpful travel pumping tips, check out this blog post! Want to see an example of how I recently traveled with 160 ounces of fresh pumped milk? Click here!
