Preparation & Storage

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Preparation & Storage

Healthcare professionals and parents are advised to make up each feed when they are needed, and to try to avoid making feeds up in advance.

General good hygiene advice includes making sure all work surfaces are clean and dry and that all utensils are cleaned with hot soapy water, rinsed and sterilised prior to preparation of feeds.

Instructions on the packaging of SMA infant milks are as follows:

Failure to follow instructions may make the baby ill.

Step 1.

Wash hands well. Sterilise all utensils according to manufacturers’ instructions.

Step 2.

Boil fresh water from the tap and allow to cool for 30 minutes. Measure required amount of water (Carefully – the water is hot) into the sterilised bottle – see feeding table (on the infant milk label). Do not use artificially softened water or repeatedly boiled water.

Step 3.

Using the scoop provided in this can, add the correct number of scoops of powder to the bottle according to the feeding table, levelling off each scoop with the back of a clean dry knife. Do not add extra powder or water to make feeds stronger or weaker and do not press powder into scoop. Using too much or too little powder could make your baby ill.

Step 4.

Place the sterilised teat and cap on the bottle and shake well. Cool bottle under cold running water until lukewarm. Test temperature by shaking a few drops onto the inside of your wrist.

The Food Standards Agency and the Department of Health has issued “Guidance for health professionals on safe preparation, storage and handling of powdered infant formula “. If advanced preparation is required, guidance has been given in the document, which can be found using the following link.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland has issued its own guidance entitled “Guidance Note 22: Information Relevant to the Development of Guidance Material for the Safe Feeding of Reconstituted Powdered Infant Formula”, which can be found using the following link.