Why I Threw Away 90 Ounces of My Breast Milk

Anyone who has been able to breastfeed their child or been around a mom who has spent hours a day pumping knows that breast milk is like liquid gold. This is more so during the early weeks after the child is born. Breast milk not only nourishes your baby but also protects your vulnerable newborn by helping to fight infection and promote development.

So why in the world did I throw this precious supply away? Plus, 90 oz (2,661 ml) of breast milk is quite a lot.

Here’s what happened.

I started to pump from the day my daughter was born and will save stashes of breast milk in the freezer cause I was paranoid that my supply may drop and my baby would be left with nothing to eat -or have some saved so another caregiver was able to feed her while I was away.

The first time I tried giving her freezer thawed breast milk was at 2 months old. She repeatedly refused to take it. I later found out that once breast milk goes into the freezer, refrigerated and thawed, the taste of the breast milk goes soar due to excess lipase present. Ah Ha! I thought I had found the reason so I tried to fix and found out you can scald the milk before putting it in the freezer. Scalding is a process of heating your breast milk and allowing it cool before putting it in the freezer. This will help remove the soar taste. After thinking about it I decided not to do it because I was concerned that the amount of heat applied to the breast milk may destroy nutrients in it.

I made a few more attempts to give her pumped breast milk from her freezer stash but she remained adamant. I then decided there was no point pumping if she would keep refusing. I not only realize she didn’t like the freezer stash, but also discovered she didn’t want to take (even freshly pumped breast milk) from her bottle. We then went on on-demand breastfeeding. It was quite a stressful period for me and the family because in the middle of this, we had to relocate.

I didn’t want my frozen stash to go to waste and I didn’t want to deal with the stress of traveling with it if she was refusing it.

I reached out to a breast milk bank to see if I could donate it.

They came back with a ton of questions, assessments and said they will need to run a series of test before they could accept it. The deal breaker was that the smallest amount they could take was 100 oz and I had 90 oz. I was very disappointed as I knew many babies in the NICU (Newborn Intensive Care Unit) could use it. Amid moving, I unwillingly decided to throw the stash away. After doing this, I realized I could make breast milk soap bars and use on my daughter and for the family but it was a little too late.

There are other ways to make use of your thawed frozen stash of breast milk that your child is refusing to consume.

1. Breast milk can be used to clear up diaper rashes.
2. Mix breast milk with coconut oil and use to remove cradle cap scales.
3. Use the breast milk to clear up acne.
4. You can use your breast milk to make soap bars for the household.

One thing I appreciate about motherhood is being able to make mistakes and learn repeatedly just to give our kiddos the best. Have you ever been in a similar predicament as this?