Dani,

In our NICU we also have a high rate of moms pumping EBM. We recently revised
our guidelines(1 year ago) to have moms store in either hard or glass bottles
and to stop using the freezer bags due to loss of IgA. Our Nurse manager from
NICU bargained with a formula company and we get the lids and presterilized
bottles of hard plastic. We have to sterilize the lids at our hospital though.
I see all the moms when instructing on pumping for a preemie and we have the
moms resterilizing the bottles at home after they are emptied of EBM each day.
Once the preemies start on oral feeds this recycling does save on supplies. We
do stress how to clean and resterilize though. For the past year this has
worked well. For the Moms who are pumping long term and whose babies go a long
time initially without an oral feed we can go through tons of bottles as well.
For those moms we do tell them to use the bottles for storing EBM for hospital
use and bags for excess milk for later use as supplement when the baby is
breastfeeding at a later date.  Logistically it can pose a real storage
problem in freezers at their homes and bags are more compact. It is a sin to
throw it away!!!That should be avoided if at all possible.
Sincerely,
Jane Ciaramella