Stored breast milk is bad!

[moonstone523]

Sammy is refusing the bottle. What's new?

I had Dave taste the frozen milk we were giving her and he spit it out immediately and said it's bad. He then tasted just pumped milk and it was totally different.

So that means I have like 100 bags of sour milk in my fridge.

I'm seeing online some women say that they have to almost boil pumped milk before freezing. What a pain in the ass. Argh.

We need to do more taste tests, but ugh, this sucks. 3 months of pumped milk bad I believe. It has something to do with the excess of lipase in my milk.

[sara76]

First, ugh that totally sucks! Like for real.

Second, Dave would agree to taste the milk? Impressive.

[moonstone523]

Dec 17, 2012 9:22:29 GMT -5 sara76 said:

First, ugh that totally sucks! Like for real.

Second, Dave would agree to taste the milk? Impressive.

Yup. Dave took one for the team. Ha.

And yes, TOTALLY suck.

[sara76]

I've never had my milk go bad in the freezer but I have thrown out a big batch of sweet potato purée mixed with it from the freezer for smelling off.

So Dave thinks it tastes "better" freshly pumped. Does Sammy? Will she take the bottle that way? Are you leaving the house completely to go for a walk when the bottle is offered?

[moonstone523]

Dec 17, 2012 10:04:41 GMT -5 sara76 said:

I've never had my milk go bad in the freezer but I have thrown out a big batch of sweet potato purée mixed with it from the freezer for smelling off.

So Dave thinks it tastes "better" freshly pumped. Does Sammy? Will she take the bottle that way? Are you leaving the house completely to go for a walk when the bottle is offered?

No and no. I need to leave. I'm not. I'm micromanaging. But when MIL was here this weekend I was gone and she wouldn't take it. My family comes this weekend, and we'll let them try too. H has been trying with no luck.

So I'm defrosting milk from October 7 and November 30 and will to a taste test myself. Brave, I know.

[jennifer8080]

It's not bad technically. But frozen vs. Fresh milk always had a different taste for me. As well as smell. But not something that caused Kennedy to refuse it. I think some people can have issues with extra lipase (?) in their milk. I do remember something about people boiling it to prevent the taste from changing dramatically.

[jennifer8080]

Dec 17, 2012 10:04:41 GMT -5 sara76 said:

I've never had my milk go bad in the freezer but I have thrown out a big batch of sweet potato purée mixed with it from the freezer for smelling off.

So Dave thinks it tastes "better" freshly pumped. Does Sammy? Will she take the bottle that way? Are you leaving the house completely to go for a walk when the bottle is offered?

I made baby food with breastmilk once and froze it. Belled horrible when I defrosted it! I threw it away and started making food with water instead. LOL

[sara76]

The first time Amelia finally took a bottle was when I dropped her off at my sisters house and took my bike out around the neighborhood. She was in an environment that didn't smell like me and I was nowhere to be found, so it was finally a source of comfort to her.

Good luck. I know it's stressful.

[sara76]

Dec 17, 2012 10:13:49 GMT -5 jennifer8080 said:

Dec 17, 2012 10:04:41 GMT -5 sara76 said:

I've never had my milk go bad in the freezer but I have thrown out a big batch of sweet potato purée mixed with it from the freezer for smelling off.

So Dave thinks it tastes "better" freshly pumped. Does Sammy? Will she take the bottle that way? Are you leaving the house completely to go for a walk when the bottle is offered?

I made baby food with breastmilk once and froze it. Belled horrible when I defrosted it! I threw it away and started making food with water instead. LOL

Yes me too. Food with water from that day out! I don't know if the food changes the chemistry of the milk but it was metallic like. Yucky.

[jennifer8080]

Caleb took a bottle once. A playtex Nurser. And never since. Have you tried switching bottle types?

[loskadoodle]

DON'T THROW IT OUT!! I HOPE THIS GETS TO YOU IN TIME!

How old is she?? We went through the exact same thing around 2 months. And I threw out a whole bag of milk that wasn't bad! It just tastes and smells different once frozen.

I read a lot about this and that is the age when they start developing preferences. It was just a phase and after about a week he started taking the bottle again with no issue.

[loskadoodle]

He takes frozen BM with no issue now too.

[mrsjason]

Dec 17, 2012 10:08:38 GMT -5 moonstone523 said:

Dec 17, 2012 10:04:41 GMT -5 sara76 said:

I've never had my milk go bad in the freezer but I have thrown out a big batch of sweet potato purée mixed with it from the freezer for smelling off.

So Dave thinks it tastes "better" freshly pumped. Does Sammy? Will she take the bottle that way? Are you leaving the house completely to go for a walk when the bottle is offered?

No and no. I need to leave. I'm not. I'm micromanaging. But when MIL was here this weekend I was gone and she wouldn't take it. My family comes this weekend, and we'll let them try too. H has been trying with no luck.

So I'm defrosting milk from October 7 and November 30 and will to a taste test myself. Brave, I know.

Macy would not take a bottle when it was time for me to go back to work. She totally refused and I began to panic as my maternity leave came to an end.

Have you tried different bottles? I went to BRU and bought every brand of bottle on the shelf (well almost every brand) finally she took the "my breast friend" bottle.......or it was called something like that. Once she learned to take that we had no issues with bottles she would take any brand, had no preference.

I would say mix up the brand of bottle and keep offering it and hopefully soon you'll make headway

Oh, and I have no clue about frozen BM. I never, not once, had a freezer stash. My supply sucked

[babybchbum]

It took T a while to like frozen bm but ended up taking it just fine. I have drop ins( with inserts) and breast friend bottles you can try rather than having to go out and buy a million bottles.

[mrsjenrn]

Dec 17, 2012 10:12:30 GMT -5 jennifer8080 said:

It's not bad technically. But frozen vs. Fresh milk always had a different taste for me. As well as smell. But not something that caused Kennedy to refuse it. I think some people can have issues with extra lipase (?) in their milk. I do remember something about people boiling it to prevent the taste from changing dramatically.

This! Zoe never had a problem with it, but I thought it was nasty! It is probably lipase. Kellymom.com is a great resource! This is what they said about lipase:

What can I do if my storage problem is due to excess lipase? Once the milk becomes sour or rancid smelling/tasting, there is no known way to salvage it. However, newly expressed milk can be stored by heating the milk to a scald to inactivate the lipase and stop the process of fat digestion. Scald the milk as soon after expression as possible.

To scald milk:
¡Heat milk to about 180 F (82 C), or until you see little bubbles around the edge of the pan (not to a full, rolling boil).
¡Quickly cool and store the milk.

Scalding the milk will destroy some of the antiinfective properties of the milk and may lower some nutrient levels, but this is not likely to be an issue unless all of the milk that baby is receiving has been heat-treated.

[mrsjenrn]

This too

What if your milk tastes/smells sour, or even rancid, rather than soapy?

If your milk tastes/smells sour or rancid rather than soapy, the cause may be chemical oxidation rather than lipase (Mohrbacher, p. 461). Momfs intake of polyunsaturated fats may be involved, or free copper or iron ions in her water. When this happens, Mohrbacher has a few suggestions to try:
¡avoid your usual drinking water (either drinking it or having milk come into contact with it)
¡avoid fish-oil and flaxseed supplements, and foods like anchovies that contain rancid fats
¡increase your antioxidant intake (including beta carotene and vitamin E).