During the first 2 weeks of his life, Hank had a few bottles of formula and seemed to do fine with expressed breast milk (EBM) in a bottle. However, once breastfeeding was well-established by 6 weeks old, he seemed to reject the bottle altogether. On the few occasions I had to leave him home with Brian or my mom, he would only manage to choke down 1 ounce of EBM before rejecting the bottle altogether. I thought he just didn't like bottles and preferred to nurse. Since I am home for 1 year, I didn't think it was really a big deal.
Last week, I attended a funeral and had to bring Hank with me. I was concerned that there wouldn't be a convenient place to nurse Hank so I decided to defrost some frozen EBM from my small freezer stash. The EBM I defrosted was from November. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) breast milk storage guidelines, frozen EBM that is stored in the freezer compartment of a refrigerator with separate doors can be stored for 3-6 months. So my EBM from November should have been alright. After defrosting, I gave the milk a sniff and it smelled soapy. I stuck my (clean) finger in the bottle and tasted it. OMG, it was awful! It tasted like sour cow's milk, but worse. I immediately recalled another mother from an online community I belong to sharing about how her EBM had a soapy smell to it and that her baby wouldn't take it. She mentioned excess lipase.
Thinking that this EBM might have just been past its prime, I decided to defrost another bag of EBM I had frozen the previous week. This milk should definitely be okay. I gave it a taste and I gagged big time! Just for good measure, I asked Brian to taste it, too. He had a similar reaction. We also tasted some freshly expressed BM so we knew how it should taste. Yep, there was definitely something funny going on with my milk so I started Google-ing.
Having an excess of lipase can make the milk "go bad" soon after it is expressed, giving it a sour/rancid/soapy smell and flavor. Allegedly, babies won't get sick from drinking this "bad" milk, but I nearly vomited when tasting it and I would never expect Hank to drink it.
Kellymom.com had a very helpful article on funny-tasting milk and excess lipase. A La Leche League International online forum also had extensive information from women who also had excess lipase and how they have dealt with it.
We were going to Joy's wedding in a few days so I decided to pump some milk and scald it according to the guidelines from the previous 2 links. Thankfully, it tasted fine the following day and, while Hank seemed a bit confused about being given a bottle, he managed to drink all 2 ounces. I need to do a bit more experimentation, though, to determine if Hank still just doesn't like bottle-feeding.
I decided to try another experiment to see how long it took for my milk to go bad. I pumped about 1 ounce of milk and kept it in the refrigerator, mainly to be used for thinning out Hank's solid food, but also for taste-testing. I've determined that after about 24 hours, my refrigerated EBM is still drinkable, but I could tell it was beginning to go bad. By 36 hours, it was absolutely horrible! So now I know that if I ever pump more milk than Hank will take within about 24 hours, I need to scald it first. Oh, and it looks like I'll need to dump my current freezer stash. Thankfully, I don't have too much. Maybe less than 50 ounces. I still cringe at the thought of dumping it, though.
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