If you have high lipase milk, the excessive breakdown of fats can result in a metallic, soapy, or fishy aroma and taste that your baby may dislike. When this happens, the nutritive properties of the milk are not affected. However, some babies may disfavor the taste of high lipase breastmilk. So let’s go over high lipase level, adding vanilla to high lipase milk, what causes high lipase milk, and more!
First, What is Lipase?
Lipase is an enzyme that helps digest fat [1].
Breast milk contains two types of lipase: lipoprotein lipase and bile salt-dependent lipase [2]. Both have positive roles to play in digestion and immunological effects on your baby.
Bile salt-dependent lipase is found only in human breastmilk and milk from mountain gorillas. Quite an interesting lactation fact, right?
The benefits of lipase for your baby include:
- Supporting baby’s ability to digest fats [1] by guaranteeing fat molecules remain blended into the milk in a small, easily digestible form [2].
- Breaking down triglycerides to release fat-soluble nutrients such as vitamins A, D, E, and K [3].
- Releasing free fatty acids that provide immunological effects (including antibacterial, antiviral, and anti-protozoan) [4]. One purpose of the lipolysis process is to prevent the growth of microorganisms in thawed breastmilk [5].
- Protecting against infectious intestinal parasites such as Giardia (a parasite that causes diarrhea) and Cryptosporidium (a parasite that causes the diarrheal disease: cryptosporidiosis) [6].
What Causes High Lipase Milk?
There are a couple of possibilities as to why the odor or taste of your breastmilk may change, and the solutions depend on the root cause.
If the change in odor and taste is due to the high lipase level, often, the breastmilk doesn’t smell or taste abnormal when it’s fresh, but you and/or your baby may notice the difference if the high lipase breastmilk has been refrigerated or frozen, and this is because the lipase has had more time to break down more fats.
Additionally, the rate at which this occurs varies from person to person. For some, it occurs in less than 12 hours, while others notice little or no change for up to a few days.
Adding Vanilla to High Lipase Milk?
What can help if your baby dislikes the taste?
Try these tricks if your baby dislikes the taste of your high lipase breast milk:
- Try mixing the refrigerated or defrosted high lipase breastmilk with half freshly expressed breastmilk. Babies are often content if the smell and taste are masked with fresh breastmilk.
- If your baby is 6 months old or older, you may add 1-2 drops of alcohol-free vanilla extract to the bottle to help improve the taste.
- Lastly, you may scald your high lipase breastmilk before freezing it to resolve this issue. However, scalding your breastmilk above 100°F (40°C) can deactivate lipase and is not advised as this may destroy many of the immunological active factors and benefits in breastmilk [5].
However, if the first two options do not work for you, it is still immensely beneficial to feed your baby the scalded high lipase breastmilk over some other options.
If possible, try to nurse your baby at your breast and/or feed your baby fresh breastmilk when possible.
Deactivate High Lipase Breastmilk Activity
You may scald your high lipase breastmilk to deactivate high lipase milk activity. Scalding means heating the milk to where bubbles are just seen forming on the edges.
To scald your breastmilk:
- Place the milk in a clean pan or pot over low heat on the stove.
- Heat the milk to the point where it is bubbling around the edges but not boiling, as boiling will definitely reduce or destroy valuable immunologic properties [7].
- Place the pan in a larger bowl filled with ice water (use lots of ice) to cool it quickly.
- Store your breastmilk in rigid polypropylene plastic or Pyrex containers [8], either in the refrigerator if it is to be used within a day or two or in the freezer if it will be stored longer.
Lawrence and Lawrence recommend rigid polypropylene containers to store breastmilk because fewer nutrients and immunological components are lost compared to breastmilk stored in other containers [8].
Lawrence and Lawrence also say that if polypropylene containers are unavailable, Pyrex containers are the next best choice. However, the best choice for storing breastmilk is glass storage containers.
For ease of use, I stick to glass storage containers and breastmilk storage bags.
Another Possible Cause of High Lipase Milk: Chemical Oxidation
Another possible cause of a change in smell or odor in your breastmilk may be chemical oxidation. This problem is extremely rare but may be more challenging to resolve.
If your breastmilk smells rancid or sour, milk storage experts Jones and Tully suggest the cause is likely chemical oxidation rather than high lipase activity.
Chemical oxidation may be caused by a diet containing polyunsaturated or rancid fats or drinking water with free copper or iron ions.
What can help?
When chemical oxidation occurs, your breastmilk is actually spoiled and should be discarded. Scalding the milk will only make this issue worse. However, these dietary changes may help:
- Avoid fish oil or flax-seed supplements, anchovies, old vegetable oils, bad nuts, or other foods that may contain rancid fats [9, 10].
- Drink filtered water to reduce the potential for iron or copper ions to be a cause [9]. Using a water filter like the Brita removes copper and iron from your faucet water. My family personally uses the Brita, and we love it. The Brita does take up a good amount of space in your fridge, but the Brita filters last us a long time even with using it 3-6x daily.
- Increasing your antioxidant intake may also help prevent chemical oxidation, so you might want to try including beta carotene (found in orange fruits and vegetables) and vitamin E in your diet [9] to help.
Questions or Comments on How Much Fat is in Breastmilk?
If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below👇🏻
Talk soon, mama!
– Katelyn Lauren
Sources
[1] lipids; Lönnerdal and Atkinson, 1995, p. 361
[2] Lawrence and Lawrence, 2016, pp. 136-137
[3] Lawrence and Lawrence, p. 137
[4] Lawrence and Lawrence, p. 136
[5] https://abm.memberclicks.net/assets/DOCUMENTS/PROTOCOLS/8-human-milk-storage-protocol-english.pdf
[6] Lawrence & Lawrence, p. 463
[7] Lawrence and Lawrence, pp. 162, 721-722
[8] Lawrence and Lawrence, p. 719
[9] Mohrbacher, p. 461
[10] Vieira SA, McClements DJ, Decker EA. Challenges of utilizing healthy fats in foods. Adv Nutr. 2015 May 15;6(3):309S-17S. doi: 10.3945/an.114.006965. PMID: 25979504; PMCID: PMC4424769.
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