Dr. Ruth Lawrence's book Breastfeeding: A Guide for the Medical Profession, 1994, p. 619 states: " Women have reported to the Lactation Study Center that their fresh-frozen breast milk smells sour and even rancid and is rejected by their infant. Although a slightly soapy odor had sometimes been noted, it had never been reported to be harmful nor to be rejected by the infant. This soapy smell has been attributed to a change in the lipid structure associated with the freeze-thaw effects of the self-defrost cycle in the freezer-refrigerator. The cases reported to the center, however, have suggested true lipid breakdown is associated witht he rancid smell. The speculation was that some women have more lipase activity than others, as noted in the study of lipase and hyperbilirubinemia. Some mothers reported that their milk began to smell as soon as it cooled, whether refrigerated or frozen. Others have noted that their stockpile of milk, meticulously stored in anticipation of returning to work, was rancid and rejected by their infant. When these mothers heated their milk to a scald ( not boiling) and then quickly cooled and froze it, the effect was not apparent and their infants accepted the heat-treated milk. That process inactivated the lipase and halted the process of fat digestion. On the other hand, scalding rancid milk will not improve the flavor or smell." I seem to have a high lipase content in my milk. I express, freeze and store in a freezer without an automatic defrost cycle. Will the lipase activity continue? should I scald before freezing and decrease the quality of the milk? The milk is intended for a baby who is not yet born, mother had had lactation failure twice, but breastfed as she could. At this point, I have no way of knowing if the soapy flavor will cause the baby to reject the milk. I assume my milk will be about half of the breastmilk this baby receives for the first couple of months so I don't want to feed her "inferior" milk that has the immunological factors destroyed by scalding. FWIW, my husband thought my elder daughter rejected my expressed milk because of the soapy flavor, but I suspect (now) that she was just offended by alternative means of feeding. there is nothing in the archives on this, so please reply to the list. :-) kate ===== Kate Hallberg,http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~kolina/ mom to Ursula (6!), Sage (almost 4) and Benno (12-31-00) http://www.themestream.com/gspd_browse/reg/register_topic.gsp?auth_id=97400 Above all else: Sky. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/?.refer=text *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html