I soon learned that using normal household refrigerator/freezers held many problems for the storage of breast milk. The number one culprit? The defrost cycle! While it makes our lives easier, it also puts all frozen items through a warming cycle that is incompatible with long-term storage needs. There are also issues of cross-contamination from meat and fish, and variable temperature problems from freezer storage items increasing and decreasing. These issues create an environment that is not safe for breast milk storage.