Frozen breastmilk tastes off

[mayapapaya]

Dear moms,

I've been freezing my breastmilk and realized recently as I was going to use it for the first time that it didn't taste at all like my freshly expressed milk. There seems to be a slight sourish taste to it. I tried older bags (2 months) and newer bags (1 week) and they all had that same taste. I have a good freezer, the standard, and I use bags that are especially made for this. When I leave my breastmilk in the fridge for two days (I tried that to compare) it taste just fine.

Is it normal that when I freeze my milk it tastes a bit sour afterwards? I can't really "test it" on my DD right now, since she is fighting the bottle, fresh milk or not. But I don't want to keep freezing my milk if freezing it seems to make it go bad. Unless somebody tells me that that weird taste is normal...

Thanks for your input! 

[jana224]

Hi!
Honestly I don't know... it will taste a bit different depending on how long it's been in the freezer and what other foods you have in there, but I might be afraid to use it if it tastes sour.

I've heard that some people have a different enzyme - lipase I think? - that can make their milk go through a different chemical process when freezing.  You could google it and see if there's anything to that.

When you freeze your milk are you a) letting it chill in the fridge first before putting in the freezer and b) storing at the back of the freezer, not the door?

Jana

[RachelC]

We've had some threads about this issue come up before, I will try to find them.  In the meantime, check out this link:

http://www.kellymom.com/bf/pumping/lipase-expressedmilk.html

[RachelC]

Here are a few of the threads I dug up:
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=87337.0
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=84733.0

[mayapapaya]

Thanks a lot! Very helpful!!!

[~*~Little Miss Sunshine~*~]

I had/have the same problem.  Scared the heck out of me that I was feeding DS1 sour milk!  I never bothered to heat it as DS1 never had an issue eating it.  We'll see if DS2 is the same way...I sure hope so!

[Erin (redstarfalling)]

This always happened to my frozen milk too (and I couldn't be bothered doing the whole heating thing before freezing to prevent it), but both my girls drank it just fine!  It's still very healthy.