High Lipase Milk

So you pumped a bunch of milk and froze it for later. You’ve got the stash everyone talks about on tik tok, but when it comes time to offer some to baby, they wont take it!?

You go to smell it and it smells metallic, soapy, or even rancid! You’re freaking out thinking you gave your baby spoiled milk, but I have GOOD and BAD news for you.

Bad news? You probably have high lipase milk. Essentially an enzyme in your milk breaks down milk fats too fast resulting in this unfortunate smell/taste.

Good news? It’s completely safe for baby. They probably won’t take it straight in a bottle or straw but there is nothing nutritionally wrong with it.

It can be fixed BEFORE it’s frozen so going forward you can avoid this problem. But with all the milk you are looking at now it may be hard to get baby to take it.

How to avoid this in the future:

• Trial a few different techniques (Freeze immediately after pumping, remove all air from milk bags, scalding milk before freezing)

• Date and mark each trial option and freeze for at least 4 days

• Defrost and test each to see which technique works best for your milk

Keep all frozen milk for when baby starts solids as a mix into smoothies, oatmeal, anything with a stronger flavour to mask the taste but keep the nutrition going into baby!

Know someone who is pumping? Share this post with them to make sure they are not making the same mistakes!

-Victoria