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Nuclear feeding

As a father who is also a geek, I have a question for nurses, childcare professionals, physicists, etc. Can someone explain to me why I can’t warm breast milk in a microwave?


Sarah and I got into a small argument the other day, and I acceded to her wishes, but it doesn’t make any sense to me. When you heat a liquid in a microwave, it tends to heat unevenly. This is why anything you heat in a nuker usually have to be stirred halfway through. So when heating breast milk, you end up with small sections of the milk that still cold, and sections that are infant-searingly hot. Obviously this is bad. The recommended technique is that you heat up a bunch of water in the microwave, and then sit the bottle of milk in it for a few minutes to warm it.


I did that the other day, and left the bottle in for longer than anticipated; the outside got quite warm, while the inside was sort of tepid. So: I shook it up. This caused the colder milk in the middle to mix with the hotter milk on the outside, bringing the whole thing to just about body temperature.


Why can’t I do that when microwave heating? Throw the thing in the nuker for 5 seconds and then shake the bejebus out of it. I don’t stick it in Josephine’s mouth without testing it on my arm either way, so what’s the problem? Why can’t I do this? Why?

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  1. June 29th, 2009 at 10:05 | #1

    Your explanation of why not to microwave milk is the standard one that I have heard. The other part might be that breast milk actually contains immune cells and other special proteins and antibodies from mom and microwaving hot spots might kill the cells or break those down the beneficial proteins, while warming in water is unlikely to get hot enough to do that.

    I have also heard that you are not supposed to shake up breast milk just swirl to stir. of course I don’t know the reason for that one, perhaps air entrapment?

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