15 Nov This new service is making life easier for breastfeeding families

If you’re a breastfeeding mum, you know all too well the challenges that come when trying to share the feeding load.

Yes, you can pump and freeze your milk, but this only lasts so long in the freezer, and transporting it safely can be a nightmare, especially if you need to travel or return to work.

Mother of three Cass Wingrove knows this challenge well – after travelling overseas when her second child was young and trying to navigate pumping and transporting her milk so she and her husband could attend a friend’s wedding.

This challenge planted a seed, and now Cass has launched Australia’s first breast milk freeze-drying service, which extends the life of nutrient-rich breast milk and makes it more accessible and transportable.

The service, Nourishy, is a user-friendly breast milk freeze-dying service, where frozen pumped breast milk is collected from your home, then transported to a facility in Brisbane where it is freeze-dried to create a powder which preserves all of the milk’s nutrients, with a shelf life of three years.

Each bag is tagged and tracked to ensure no cross-contamination, and no milk comes into contact with people or machinery at any point in the process.

The service is ideal for mums returning to work from maternity leave and navigating the minefield of breastfeeding and employment. Rather than having to stress about pumping and storing milk for caregivers, freeze-dried breast milk is easy to transport and use. Simply add cooled boiled water and you have a bottle of breast milk ready to go. Freeze-drying breast milk also empowers dads to take part in feeding their babies, and broadens the options for breastfeeding mums when they need to travel or attend events.

“As a breastfeeding mum myself, I know how hard it can be to store and transport pumped breast milk – especially when travelling or leaving your baby in someone else’s care,” says Nourishy founder Cass Wingrove.

“Nourishy’s system adheres to stringent hygiene standards, and uses robust tracking systems to maintain the integrity of each mother’s own milk. We’ve already had amazing feedback from families, midwives and breast milk donation clinics about the potential of this new service. Nourishy is opening up options to make breastmilk more accessible and long-lasting. It’s empowering mums, dads, caregivers and guardians to feed babies nutrient-rich, immune-boosting breastmilk, with the ultimate convenience of a take-anywhere powder.”

Using smart, contactless technology, Nourishy provides specialised shipping boxes to participating mothers, and a tagging system is used to ensure each person’s milk is tracked during every stage of the process.

Main Image: Cass Wingrove and family. Find out more about the service at Nourishy