Michaela said:
"An idea: sodium have FDP power much greater than sugar (see link).
We know that colostrum, involution milk, milk during engorgement or
inflammation and mastitis milk have a higher percentage of sodium (have you
ever tested milk in one of these conditions? it is definitely salty).
Could it be that the non freezing milk was for some reason containing a
higher than average % of sodium for an inflammation or a similar reason?
perhaps combined with other factors that contributed further to the
depression of the freezing point?"

Very interesting, isn't one of the ways in which the milk a mother makes for a preterm infant differs from full-term milk, the fact that it has a higher sodium content?

This would make a lot of sense then that the milk would need a lower temp to freeze, think about the temperature that water freezes at versus salt water, like ocean water. Salt water freezes at a much lower temperature. Here's a link that I found to the Physics Dept at the University of Illinois.

http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=1722


They state that when a liquid is 23.3 sodium it would need to reach a temperature of minus 21.1 degrees C. So it depends on the sodium content, the more sodium the lower the temp needs to be. But they also state that usually what happens is that the sodium begins to separate from the water and you will get partial freezing.

What is everyone's experience with this? Does this usually happen with premie babies? Or are you seeing it with full-term babies too?

Tricia Shamblin, RN, IBCLC

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