Expressed milk smelling like gone off cheese!

[greeneone12]

It was stored in the fridge from the time I expressed it on Tuesday morning to this morning at which point I took it out the fridge for a few hours to bring it back to room temperature. What did I do wrong as I thought it could be at room temperature for several hours?

Kellymom has lots of info about storing breastmilk, but I found that my milk was going off a long time before these times had elapsed....

My milk only lasted 2/3 days max in the fridge (so nowhere near whatever it's supposed to! and my fridge temp was fine, and we stored it at the back, not the front etc) - and when I got it out of the fridge, it lasted barely 2 hours at warm room temperature before it started to go off.

Fresh bm was okay at room temp for 3-4 hours, but of course, mostly the whole point of expressing was to leave it in the fridge/freezer and then use it later.

We also ran into big problems with freezing it, in the freezer section of a fridge freezer. It didn't last any longer than 2 weeks. After that, when it was defrosted, it was basically off. I had a heartbreaking weekend when about 7 batches of several ounces each was defrosted, that I'd had in there for 1-2 months - all gone off and unusable.

It seems to depend a lot on the individual, but I personally think a lot of the estimates about how long you can leave breastmilk at room temp or in a fridge are very optimistic. Great that you don't have to throw it away after an hour, like formula, sure, and I know BM has antibacterial properties etc - but after 5 hours in a warm room, it's just milk that's gone off.

Well it seems that my milk from Thursday is already off too and that has been in the fridge since I pumped it :( I can't believe it!!! I wanted to get ahead with my pumping for weaning and I can only express 2oz at a time. I might just switch to formula as this is a bit too much like hard work!

Thanks for your reply

x

Sorry to hear that about the other set of milk as well!

Just wondering, why do you want to pump to wean?

There was a thread about this a while ago and I don't remember the details properly. Seems some women have something in their milk that causes it to spoil sooner and smell funny. Someone who knows more will be along soon, I'm sure.

Found it!!! "A few mothers find that their refrigerated or frozen milk begins to smell or taste soapy, sour, or even rancid soon after it's stored, even though all storage guidelines have been followed closely. Per Lawrence & Lawrence (p. 781), the speculation is that these mothers have an excess of the enzyme lipase in their milk, which begins to break down the milk fat soon after the milk is expressed. Most babies do not mind a mild change in taste, and the milk is not harmful, but the stronger the taste the more likely that baby will reject it."

Thanks so much. That is very interesting! Oh to be special I will air on the side of caution and only keep in the fridge for 24 hours.

When I say 'weaning' I mean onto solids for baby rice not weaning off the breast. I would love to do that bud DD needs to take a bottle first!!!

I just use cows milk for anything involving food :)

I think for the lipase thing you can scald the milk which sorts the problem; breastfeedingbasics.info/lipase-and-bad-tasting-breast-milk

Thanks again. She is under 6 months so can't do that yet....

I have chucked the 'bad milk' away anyway but thanks for the info.

On goes the HUGE learning curve that is motherhood......

x

I told you someone who knew more would be along, Cosmosis

Aha, I remember reading the lipase thing, and thinking - oh, great, that's me, then...

Scalding milk before storage is a massive PITA - doubles the amount of time and 'kit' you need to use - I just abandoned the idea of storing milk in a 'stash' and pumped so that I only kept milk in the fridge for 2 days, and freezer for a week or so.

I also found that once defrosted, my milk went off VERY quickly, even if it smelt and tasted fine as soon as it was at room temp.

That's another thing - taste your milk, unless you really prefer not to. I read a few things saying that babies don't really mind the taste etc if it's a bit funny, but I tasted my milk when it smelt very sour, and it WAS sour. Made me sick. There's no way I'd be putting that in a bottle for DS (fresh milk tastes entirely different, sweet and a bit vanilla).

Such a pain - I was lucky enough to be able to express a lot very easily, DS took a bottle like a pro, but then it was really hard storing milk. Oh well.

Yep, excess lipase. i had this problem with ds2, but not ds1. Strange!

The whole scalding thing was a PITA tbh and I ended up not bothering expressing apart from a one off when I was in hospital for day surgery. And ds2 didn't even take the bottle anyway.

And I rarely go anywhere that I can't take him, so not an issue in our case.