At 10:02 AM 9/28/96 -0500, Dani wrote:
>I have a question about our storage containers. We use sterile water
bottles and their lids. These are provided by a formula company. My concern
is that these lids let milk leak out....

Dani, we use formula company bottle lids on gradufeeds and I haven't seen a
problem with leakage.  Are you sure they are really screwed on tightly?  If
so, maybe something happens when you open the bottle that prevents resealing
well.  The lids we use are new, never been on a bottle before.  We get them
from the formula company but we get them in a large batch and we package
them in groups of 10 for sterilization in house.

Then we give a sterile batch of 10 lids and 10 individually packaged sterile
gradufeeds to mom to uses for direct pumping into the gradufeed.  No
transfer of milk from pump bottle to storage bottle.

We figure she needs 16 a day for double pumping 8 times a day therefore she
needs 2 lid batches most days.  This way the lids (which are not really
sterile once the package is opened) are only in use for less than 24 hours.
It was felt to be cost prohibitive to package the lids in batches of 2,
which really would be better and meet the standards of the NAMBA.   Oh well,
before this they were using playtex bags or gradufeeds and bottle lids in
our NICU.  I always instruct the mom to just ease the lids out of the
package and to roll the packaging closed to keep the lids as clean as
possible.  NAMBA does call for sterile bottles AND lids.  I'll take that
fight up again soon.

Carla (just north of Washington, DC)