DD won't take EBM that's been frozen, it tastes different.

[Karmamother]

I've been diligently expressing my milk for DD to have when I'm at work. The milk was defrosted in readiness for her. The trouble is, she refused it all day yesterday during my first day back to work. Today, I've had a taste of today & it tastes foul! It was frozen within a couple of days & is only 3 weeks old. It tastes sour & I can understand why she didn't want it. She happily takes it unfrozen, IYSWIM.

Has anyone else had this problem & does anyone know why it tastes different??

[Karmamother]

Sorry, "I've had a taste of it today"!

[expatinscotland]

There was a thread on this quite recently. It was something like, 'Why is my milk off'.

It's apparently some women produce more of a certain hormone that can cause this and hte milk needs to be heated up before being frozen.

[WigWamBam]

Sometimes freezing can make milk go bitter. Apparently the thing to do is to scald it - bring it briefly to the boil - before you freeze it.

[lailag]

I had this problem. THis is what I wrote before (copy and pasted it)
My son refused frozen milk and when I happened to taste it, it was digusting and rancid. Even after leaving it in the fridge for more than 1 day it became bad tasting. After a lot of surfing the net I found out this could be due to an enzyme called lipase. However, if you briefly warm the milk up in a pan til you get a few bubbles at the edges (not boiling) you can avoid the problem. Anyway, when I went back to fulltime work he was about to start solids so he became less dependent on milk so I needed just to express once in the morning and once in the evening.

[Karmamother]

Thanks for your replies. I've just asked my HV & she didn't seem to have any solid advice. I do remember reading on here something about heating milk but I thought that was to do with saponification & I thought the answer was to heat it after it was defrosted. I shall try heating it first instead.

Once again, thanks!

[Gracesmum]

KM i dont know if you are aware but EBM can now be kept in the fridge for 3-5 days thus reducing the need to freeze. freezing the milk causes it to separate which can alter the taste, also when milk has been heated the advise is to swirl it around rather than shake as this can cause further disruption to the taste and qualities of the milk. you can get further info off the LA LECHE LEAGUE web site, HTH