Frozen EBM - does it all have to go?

[Longtinsellyjosie]

I have quite a lot of frozen expressed breast milk in our freezer. I've never needed to use it, but fondly imagined at some stage DH and I could go out and leave a babysitter with a feed or two.

The oldest bag's coming up for 3 months so I decided to defrost it and effectively rotate it - give it to DD then express and freeze the same amount.

It smelled horrid. Kind of soapy, but only if it were pretty nasty soap. So I tried a bit - and boak. Still feel queasy. I was careful with the bags, so am confident it was sterile.

It must be lipase, mustn't it? Which means the whole lot will be affected?

It's a frost-free freezer which I've just now learned means there's a heightened chance of this.

Is the milk actually bad? I mean, if DD will accept it could / should I give it to her? I think it tastes awful but then I think her medicine (ranitidine) tastes awful and she seems to quite like it...

I had this problem with some of my frozen milk. Since I have low supply I had no chance of making it up so I have to confess I gave it to DS anyway, and he didn't seem to mind. If it was off it would be curdled and awful, the lipase just makes it taste soapy. I also found not every bag was like this, and didn't have the same problem with my daughter, so wondering if the freezer is the issue.

Thanks Thalia. Ironically that would mean if I'd stuck it in my manky icebox it probably would have been better off...

Have a read of this.

Thanks babyOcho... so it's OK then. Still not sure I'm going to give it to her, it's rank. I'll have to be Very Brave and not weep as I tip it all away

Really useful thread - thanks!

Have the same problem and was very at having to throw away about twenty pouches of milk... perhaps we'll see if DD will take it...

Thanks again!

Longtinsellyjosie, don't chuck all of it out, go through pouch by pouch. I had a couple that were horrid, and some where there was just a faint whiff, and most were fine. Nothing to do with how long they had been stored, and anyway ds took all of it.

Don't throw it! If they don't drink it then it's off, but frozen ebm smells very different to fresh milk.

I defrosted a further bag - didn't smell as bad so tried it on DD - she looked at me like I had committed the ultimate betrayal! So I tried it and again.

Not looking good...

Try mixing a bit with fresh ebm - it took my ds a few attempts to get him to drink it.

But it is ok, isn't it Picante? I mean, Kellymom says it "isn't harmful" but that's hardly a ringing endorsement.

I had this too - mine was only ok in the freezer for about 6wks .
as Thalia says, thaw and test bag by bag, oldest one first, till you come to stuff that is still ok.

After that I always gave dd the freshest stuff I could, and tried to avoid freezing any at all. I was expressing daily after I went back to work and milk expressed on Friday was fine in the fridge till Monday.

ds never liked it so did ended up chucking it.
All the batches I tried were horrible
I did try later to scald it as described in kellymom and that was better.