EBM tastes and smells bad - has it gone off? Also Lansinoh storage bags

[smileadele]

Hi, this is my first post on here however, I am having some trouble with the storage of my expressed breast milk. I am also unfamiliar with all of the abbreviations so forgive me for writing in full.

I have a 13 week old son, who I have been breastfeeding. From about week 6/7 we started to give him one bottle of breast milk in the evening, so my husband could feed him - also so we could see whether he would take it and how much. He has taken to this fine and now feeds at least once or twice a day with expressed breast milk from a bottle.

I started to express in my third week, as it didn't feel like the baby was draining the breast and they were getting sore. I have been storing any expressed milk in the freezer using Lansinoh bags and had built up quite a big reserve (approximately 30 bags).

We'd used some of the milk when I went out for a spa day with a friend and the baby seemed to take them fine. We've also used the odd bag here and there with no problems.

However, one night, baby wasn't taking as much milk as normal and there was some left in the bottle. I suggested to my husband that now was as good a time as any to try it, as he was a bit hesitant to try it from the breast. It was awful - smelt and tasted like it had already been regurgitated from the baby.

We defrosted another bag and tried that and it was the same.

I did a little research online and called both a Breastfeeding Support Line and a local Hospital to ask if this milk was ok. All they could tell me was what I had also found, in that I might have a higher amount of an enzyme called Lipase, which breaks down the fat in the milk and which may cause a slight smell or taste. No-one knows if this milk is ok or not. Another thing could be our freezer - however, it's a fairly old freezer which as far as I know does not auto defrost and on checking the temperature, it's -18, so should be safe.

I tested the milk again myself yesterday - taking about 9 bags out, 3 of which I defrosted in some warmish water, another 3 in the fridge and 3 outside. These bags were a mix of white milk and also yellowish milk (which I assume to be more fatty). Nearly all of them had a smell - I admit to only trying a couple of them and the ones I did try were not good. Only 2 seemed to smell less. I tried one of these out on the baby (as he has taken the milk before). It smelt a little stronger after heating and after a few sucks, he pulled away.

I have now gone through my freezer supply - and 19 bags were more yellow in colour, so I have now just thrown away 3180ml of milk - as I suspect it has gone off. On defrosting it, I found that 6 of the Lansinoh bags I was using had holes in the side seems.

Has anyone else experienced any similar problems? Is it my milk that is bad, the freezer, the bags? I am trying to persevere with the breastfeeding and would like to save some for future use if I can. I have now started heating the milk before freezing, as this is supposed to stop the enzyme from working however wonder if anyone else has any more suggestions? Also does anyone know of any better freezer bags as the Lansinoh ones are obviously not up to scratch?

Sorry for the long message however, I have already asked healthcare professionals and they don't seem to have any answers.

Scalding the milk before freezing, as you are now doing, is the only solution that I know of. I had always heard that over-lipased milk was perfectly safe if you could get your baby to drink it, but as yours (quite understandably) won't that's of largely academic interest.

I do wish this were better publicised and women who plan to express and freeze milk advised to do a test batch first to see whether lipase is a problem for them or not. It's such a shame to see a whole freezer stash gone to waste like that.

Sorry I can't really offer any advice nut just wanted to say that I found that baby pulled away from off milk too and I think it's really reassuring that they are clever enough to do so :)

I had/have the same issue - my (now 15m) son won't take anything more than a day or two old, and nothing frozen at all - and I can't blame him because it goes rank so fast. Fortunately he got round this by reverse cycling so he's topped up overnight and not bothered much with the expressed stuff during the day.

I tried scalding but he never took that either - boob or nothing .

Sorry not to be able to help, but doesn't sound like it's the freezer or the bags. Try scalding and see, but you may just be like me and have to resign yourself to throwing away litres of milk.

I had this problem - milk was rank, like
vomit - DS wouldn't drink it and I don't blame him, havin tasted it myself. I don't buy the argument that it's ok - it's counter intuitive, it's rancid milk. What I found was that my milk lasted 7-10 days in the freezer before going off. It actually lasted better in a very cold bit of the fridge for 2 days. It is very frustrating. Scalding made no difference I could detect, and it was a huge PITA.

All it meant was that I couldn't build up
a freezer stash in the way i had hoped, I just had to make sure that what I pumped was used within 10 days if frozen.

I've had this with a couple of my frozen bags and scalding the milk sorted it out. After some trial and error I now make sure anything I freeze is used within a few weeks as DS enjoys it more.

Thanks for all of your responses. I have recently tested some of the milk I scalded and it seems to be ok. No horrid smell - and because of that, I did not taste it (still have nightmares over the taste of the first lot) and baby took it no problems. Funnily enough, I also tried out one of my bags from earlier this month which had not been scalded and that was fine too - not sure whats going on here but scalding certainly seems like the way to go to ensure that the frozen milk stays good.