Breast Milk Storage Tragedies

As I sit here watching Brennan sleep in his post-breakfast, post-playtime food coma, I am ready to share with you all the tragic story of 3 weeks worth of pumped breast milk gone bad. Nursing moms, you might want to read the story and make sure this doesn't happen to you.

In the beginning of August, I started pumping and freezing bags of breast milk. There was more space in the freezer in the garage, so that is where I placed the milk. On the 20th of the month, Brian took some pork chops out of the freezer for dinner that night and the freezer door didn't fully close. That night, when I went to put additional bags of milk in the freezer, I found the door slightly open, the freezer covered in frost and about 4-5 bags of defrosted milk. I had a little freak out, but tried to act rationally. I thew out the bags that were soft or defrosted and hoped that the rest of the bags, which seemed frozen solid would be okay.

The next day, the Pecorinos were in town and we tried giving Brennan a bottle from the frozen milk supply. Brennan freaked out and wouldn't take the bottle. He was crying and couldn't be consoled. I feared he might be rejecting the bottle, but then thought of our milk fiasco and decided to check to see if the milk was sour. It was. Over the next few days, I kept checking bag after bag... they were all sour. I had to face the facts and throw about about 30, 3.5 oz bags of milk. I was heart broken, but knew I needed to start rebuilding my supply.

That week, I started pumping seriously and freezing more bags, but they all seemed to go bad as well. I decided to switch the milk from the outside freezer to the inside one. That seemed to solve the issue, but I still wanted to figure out what went wrong with the milk. Yesterday, after talking with two other moms, they suggested it was the self-defrost feature in the freezer. The self defrost feature actually warms the sides of the freezer to remove frost. Sure enough, my outdoor freezer had defrosted itself after the open-door incident on Aug 20. I'm guessing my milk, which was pressed against the side of the freezer must have defrosted and refroze (maybe multiple times). I came home yesterday and moved my milk to the center of the rack in the freezer, making sure it wasn't touching any freezer walls.

To any moms working hard at freezing milk out there, keep your milk well centered in your freezer, away from the self-defrosting walls to avoid a milk storage tragedy like mine! I am back to rebuilding my supply, but am still mourning the loss of over 100 ounces of breast milk.

For those of you who might be freezing your milk without issue, but still having trouble with it going bad, I did learn that there is a protein in some women's milk that actually prevents them from storing milk at all; it goes bad immediately after it is expressed. Thankfully, I don't have that protein, but if you think you do, talk to your doctor, it may be something they can test for.