If artificial means are used for feeding, sterilizing the feeding bottle becomes an important hygiene precaution for the health of the baby.
Sterilizing feeding bottles is essential
From birth until weaning, your baby's hygiene is fundamental, especially when feeding through artificial means. Breastfeeding avoids all risk of contaminating milk that comes from handling and using feeding devices, while feeding with bottles means that you have to pay the utmost attention to the cleanliness of all those devices.
Sterilisation equals protection
Your baby's immune system hasn't completely matured harmful before 6 months from birth, so it can't handle microorganisms. That's exactly why sterilizing containers, teats, collars and bottle is essential in order to protect your baby. When you transfer liquid milk into the feeding bottle or make up powdered milk, it's important to maintain its hygiene, resting teats and instruments measuring on clean surfaces.
Sterilisation is effective and safe both hot and cold
Sterilisation can take place both hot and cold. The hot method uses boiling water, heated and vaporised through an electric coil or microwave system. It's basically a more high-tech version of boiling it in a pan the traditional way. Sterilisation times vary from around 5–15 minutes for electric models to a few minutes for microwave ones. Cold sterilising instead involves using liquid or tablet disinfectants deliberately designed to be safe and tolerated well by the baby.
Feeding bottle steriliser: an entirely personal choice
How do you choose a feeding bottle steriliser ? Since the hygienic effectiveness is comparable, it's a choice that depends on personal requirements more than anything: various models are sold, electric microwave or cold-disinfection . The usual factors that direct the decision are capacity, time, cost and practicality.