Brandi Thomas <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I received a very interesting question today. We had a
> mother bring in a bottle of EBM to our NICU. This particular bottle will
> not freeze. All the other bottles are fine, freezing like normal. All I
> could think to consider is possible alcohol in the milk? Perhaps mom had
> ingested a large quantity of alcohol before pumping? I don't know. Does
> anyone know what else might cause this. No freezer issues and this is the
> same type of container used for all her other milk, which freezes without
> any problem.

A while back I took some whole cows milk, added a heap of vodka to it,
and put it in the freezer with a bottle of non-vodka-added cows milk. I
added enough vodka to put the alcohol content far, far, far above the
level any live woman could have in her milk. Both bottles of milk froze
at the same rate, and froze solid.

If anyone has any breastmilk and pure ethanol available, perhaps you
could repeat the experiment?

This is purely a guess, but I wonder whether that batch of milk was
particularly creamy - might a higher fat content slow freezing?

Lara Hopkins

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