Guides › Is my milk still good?
Is my breast milk still good?
1What kind of milk?
2Where is it now?
3How long since it was pumped?
4Whose clock?
Still good
The clock only counts if the milk went cold within the hour of pumping and has lived at the back of the shelf, never the door.
Whatever the clock says, milk that smells sour or rancid goes down the sink. Soapy or metallic is lipase, which is safe, just not to every baby's taste.
Every number here comes from the storage table, and the table cites the NHS and CDC.
How the checker counts
It uses the same clocks as our storage table and nothing else. Where the NHS and the CDC agree, there is one clock. Where they don't, you pick. The UK allows fresh milk 8 days in the fridge and the US allows 4, and on thawed milk the positions flip: the CDC gives it 24 hours in the fridge and the NHS says use it straight away. Why they disagree is a question of margins, not of milk.
Flip the "leaving the house" switch and the tighter clock wins, whichever country you are in. That is our house rule for anything sold, shared or donated: four days chilled, six months frozen, and thawed milk doesn't travel at all. Nobody has ever complained that milk arrived fresher than promised.
Past six months in the freezer the checker says "past its best" rather than "bin it". Milk doesn't turn dangerous at six months and a day. It slowly loses fat quality and some antibody activity, and the 12-month ceiling assumes a deep freezer that holds its temperature when the door opens.
Storage is our subject. Feeding isn't. Questions about supply, latch, mastitis, medication or a baby who isn't gaining belong to a midwife, health visitor or IBCLC, and the free helplines are here.