Defrosted EBM tastes horrible

[MrsAlwaysRight]

I have defrosted a couple of bags of expressed milk and although they seem to smell ok they taste disgusting!

This has happened on a number of occasions and having googled I wonder if it could be due to high levels of lipase in milk causing it to break down quickly.

It says to heat the milk and scorch it before storing to help prevent the problem.

Has anyone had same problem? Have you tried scorching the milk and did it make a difference?

Stressing out as due to leave DD2 for about 36 hours in a few weeks and worried she won't have any edible milk!!

TIA

My frozen milk always tasted awful. I stopped freezing it - sorry, that's no help at all! My DD never took a bottle anyway, so it rapidly became a moot point. For any future DC, I've resolved not to mind about occasional formula.

I had this problem - I defrosted milk that was over 2 months old to start with, and it smelt and tasted vile (a mixture of just 'off' and also an odd paintstripper/solvent type smell).

Then I panicked and started working through my freezer stash, and it was only the milk frozen within the last ten days that smelt and tasted okay.

I was really gutted, and read about the lipase levels, same as you. But in any case, I bought a new fridge/freezer, as mine was old, and after putting the bath thermometer in the fridge section, I realised it might not be firing on all cylinders anyway, and the freezer section not freezing well enough.

In the new freezer, milk over a month old has been absolutely fine. I haven't any older milk to test yet.

So only practical advice I have is to check how cold your freezer is, and see if there's a difference between a very recent batch of frozen milk, and an older one.

I did read other stuff (on MN? Can't remember) about frozen milk tasting weird, but babies not minding. I decided mine tasted so vile, I wasn't 'testing' DS with it.

I also decided that I wasn't going to have a huge 'archive' of old frozen milk, but would rotate stock, so there was never anything over 2 weeks old in there. Partly so I didn't risk going out and leaving an 'off' bottle for DS, but also because if boob milk is so marvellously attuned to my baby's needs at various stages, then I wondered if it wasn't ideal feeding 2 month milk to a 4 month old, IYSWIM.

Sorry I can't be more help, I know it's very disappointing when you see there's a problem with your freezer stash 'safety net.'

I had a similar problem with dd1
my expressed milk smelt fine, but once frozen and defrosted it smelt vile . I called La Leche and they said some women produce too much of a certain enzyme which breaks down the sugars in the breast milk into acids. She reccommended I boiled my EBM then cooled it before freezing ( to denature the enzymes)
I couldnt be bothered so I had a freezer full of useless milk!

My daughter was always happy to drinkdefrostedmilk so assume it always tasted fine. Saying that she now eats anything so it's possible it had gone funny.

Thanks for the replies.

Think I am going to experiment with "scorching" before freezing and see if that makes any difference!

My EBM reeked with DD2, like soap (having been fine with DD1).

I found that it was strongest when I had just defrosted it. It I waited a little while (30 mins or so) the smell vanished a couple of times. DD2 still wasn't much into it but then she thought EBM was an aberation anyway.

Can you pump like mad in the few days before you go away? EMB does last quite long in the fridge and it might be better if you are not freezing it.

SlightlyTubbyHali I did think about doing that but am slightly worried if I do that it will increase my supply and I may end up spending more of my time away pumping!

I had this too and read about the scorching method, but also could never be bothered - especially as I wasn't really producing that much. Anyway dd didn't seem to mind, so we never did anything about it - lazy, I know

Have you tried your baby with it to see whether she actually minds? Is it you or her that thinks it tastes disgusting?