Frozen breastmilk smelling/ tasting weird

[joyofliving]

Hello mums,
I had frozen my excess breastmilk in April/ May and now after defrosting it smells and tastes so different. Of course my baby is rejecting it outright. I froze the milk as per the right procedure. Could anyone provide a clue as to why this may be happening?
Thanks.

 

[miaka]

i think breastmilk only lasts about 3 months in the freezer as far as i know. not sure if it might be something else. but if it tastes weird and smells funny just throw it away.

 

[joyofliving]

I thought it was alright to keep breastmilk in the freezer for 6 months, could I be wrong?

 

[LeahH]

6 months is ok - it depends on your freezer. http://www.kellymom.com/bf/pumping/milkstorage.html - this gives the timings for keeping frozen BM I certainly never threw it out if it's was a bit 'old' - far too precious!

Something else to note is that if you have frost free freezer, keep the milk stored in the middle - e.g. away from the back and sides. If the bags are touching the sides it could be defreezing and freezing every so often, and therefore going off.

There is also something specific that happens in rare cases to some people's breast milk when frozen - it's do with 'lipase' and those effected have to heat their BM before freezing to avoid the problem. It's not that common though - hopefully it's something more simply with yours. Maybe someone else can share more or you can google it for info.

I found mine frozen did smell weird, but she took to it after a few offerings (not at first though - I was annoyed I had to waste the first few that she refused..) If it smell's off/rancid, that's different.

 

[Query]

i think i had lipase with my frozen milk cos even after 1 day of it being frozen, after dethawing it, it still had the rancid/rusty taste. I had to throw out about 15L of my frozen milk in the end - i nearly cried. I gave up storing any frozen milk and just gave my daughter BM kept in the fridge.

 

[noc]

You can try using your old BM in cereal. That is what I did with old milk. I kept it in one of the typical freezers that we have in HK, i.e. front opening type, and it was fine after 6 months. She wouldn't take it straight in a bottle (since it didn't taste fresh), but it was ok when mixed up.

I read somewhere that the lipase problem is not that common, but if you have this problem, you should scald your milk before storing next time. Though I am not sure whether scalding milk will have negative effect, since I thought we weren't supposed to using hot water to re-heat BM, even when warming up!