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It sounds like excess lipase to me. It can either smell rancid or it can smell soapy. I had excess lipase with both kids (the first time around worse) but it smelled soap and had a faint soapy taste...kids still drank it so I still used it. You can scald the breastmilk before you freeze it to avoid this problem, or so I've read.

I agree. I had (self diagnosed) excessive lipase - I was baffled when my son wouldn't drink defrosted milk until I sniffed it and BLECH. I ended up throwing it all out because my son wouldn't touch it.

It sounds like excess lipase.

For me I was able to defrost it in the fridge and if I gave it right from the fridge the day I defrosted it it wouldn't have the rancid smell.

It took pretty much perfect timing to do this though. My LO refused the odd breast milk so I had to ditch like 30% of my stored milk if I messed up the timing on this. I didn't have that much though... I only was able to freeze maybe 100 ozs. Luckily LO was okay being supplemented with formula.

I did read scalding helps but I never tried it.

@hilsy85: I remember from Kellymom she said it's safe to drink, if the baby will drink it! I also noticed with my milk even if it wasn't frozen, but if it was in the fridge for more than a few days it would start to get that soapy smell. FYI!

@hilsy85: I did mine overnight. I gave it the first thing in the morning. My main problem is LO takes forever and day to drink sometimes. So he might drink half and leave the other half to drink in 20-30 minutes and during that time it would seemingly turn bad. So annoying!

Sorry you are going through this!!

Yeah running it under water for me always made it turn bad smelling right away. For me at least doing the overnight defrost worked best to reduce the bad smell.

@hilsy85: I usually pumped at night before bed and left it in the fridge for morning and cycled through and froze the older stuff that night. I usually had a few bottles of "fresh" BM in the fridge so I am pretty sure I didn't freeze right away. But honestly since LO took the milk no problem I didn't bother to experiment.

I treat my milk by scalding before freezing. My milk "lasts" exactly 5 hours before turning if I don't. If you're interested in the scalding process id be happy to share. I think it's relatively easy (if you have a stovetop).

But yeah, if baby drinks it, it's totally safe.

Yep this was me - extra lipase caused my milk to smell and taste soapy. For me as an EPer, the longer it sat in the fridge/freezer the "soapier" it got.

lc told me it was safe for LO to drink and she took it okay.

Interestingly, it seems to be related to my gall bladder attacks, which apparently causes extra lipase in your body. It was really bad smelling when I was having my worst attacks. When I had my gall bladder removed in December my milk completely stopped getting soapy.

Freezing didn't stop the process for me at all. It still was bad. I know that works for others. You may have to do some experimenting. Poor DS1, he was the subject of many such expirements. But I was prepared for DS2!

I have some lipase issues as well, but my son seems to eat it okay, so I haven't bothered to do anything about it. However, now I've got a huge freezer stash that I'm hoping to donate, so I hope the little kiddo I'm donating to doesn't mind it!

@hilsy85: I have high lipase (metallic smelling) and my DD refuses all frozen milk unless I scaled it which is a PITA! I WOH so I feed her whatever I pump that day the next day, at the end of the week I scald whatever I have left over.

I put the milk in a pot on the stove and heat it until it is about 95C (small bubbles on the suface but not boiling) and as soon as it reaches that then I stick the pot in the sink with cold water to bring the temp down right away. Once it is room temp I bag it and label it all. If my SO needs to defrost a bag he will just run it under cool water.

I googled a YouTube video on how to scale breastmilk the first time I did it!

@hilsy85: I had excess lipase and ended up with a couple different strategies to deal with it. First, I figured out how long I could let it sit in the fridge without scalding where LO would actually drink it (ended up being 2 days). Then, I figured out how long I could keep it out before scalding and then freezing (turned out it was ok to keep it in the fridge all day at work and then scald at night). I tried things like freezing without scalding and then defrosting a week later and that didn't work. There was alot of experimentation. One quick tip if you end up having to scald is that there is a Munchkin bottle warmer that doesn't have a high temp safety on it so I would use that and just put a digital thermometer in and watch until it got to the right temp. That was much easier than watching it in a pot on the stovetop every night.