What To Do With Expired Breast Milk? If your breastmilk expires, that doesn’t always make it useless. If you are a breastfeeding mother, you know how difficult it is to see that breastmilk expired, and you will naturally wonder how you can still use it.
The good news is that there are several ways you can use the breastmilk that your baby didn’t get the chance to consume.
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What to do with expired breast milk?
You can use expired breastmilk in skincare routines as well as in treating different skin conditions. Breastmilk can even become part of different jewelry and use it as an ingredient in homemade soap.
Ways to use expired breastmilk
If your breastmilk[1] expired, don’t rush to throw it away! You might be able to use it still, in ways you never thought about! Here are four excellent uses of expired breastmilk that will still give value to it!
A) Use expired breast milk during baths
Breastmilk will soften the skin and make the bath time a lot more pleasant for your baby.
- All you have to do is add a cup of breastmilk to their bath water and wash them like you usually would.
- You can add more or less breastmilk according to how much you have, and you can even use it in this way for your baths.
- You can also add essential oils or certain herbs that will make bath time even more relaxing.
- Rinse well after you add breastmilk to your bath or your baby’s bath, and you keep using your breastmilk like this until the supply of expired bottles is consumed.
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B) Frozen breastmilk can help you heal skin conditions
Breastmilk is rich in nutrients, minerals, and anti-inflammatory properties, making it an excellent home remedy for various conditions.
- You can freeze the breastmilk into ice-cube trays and use it on top of skin cuts, burns, or even certain rashes.
- You will notice that your skin will heal much faster, and you will not feel so much pain or discomfort either.
- In addition, your bruises will heal faster, and you can keep using a breastmilk ice cuber several times a day until your skin looks better.
- Breastmilk as a skin remedy works great for both you and your baby so, feel free to make the most out of it.
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C) Breastmilk can be a great ingredient in homemade soap
Not everyone is passionate about making soap at home, but if you have some expired breastmilk, it is important to know that you can use it like that.
- If you never made homemade soap before, it will be worth it to invest in a kit that will ease your task significantly.
- You can find plenty of kits to make soap at home at reasonable prices, and you will find a multitude of recipes online too.
- Add a bit of breastmilk as part of the ingredients in the quantity that you feel comfortable too.
- For example, most recipes call for an ingredient that adds fat to the soap. You can simply replace this ingredient with your expired breastmilk, and you will love the results.
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D) Transform your expired breastmilk into eternal jewelry
A more fancy and interesting way of using expired breastmilk is to turn it into jewelry.
- You can find many businesses online that are ready to make you customized rings, bracelets, or pendants by using your breastmilk.
- A little breastmilk will be added in a metal shape so you can wear it with you all the time. This would be a great memory to save for both you and your little one.
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Signs that your breastmilk is expired
Before you decide to use your breastmilk for other purposes than to feed your baby, it is essential to make sure that the milk is, indeed, expired. If you can’t tell exactly when the breastmilk went bad, you might throw away milk that is still good, or you might feed your baby expired milk. To avoid these situations, here are the most important clues to look after if you think your breastmilk is expired.
A) Check the way your breastmilk looks like
Freshly pumped breastmilk has a specific color and consistency.
- You will notice that the fat inside your milk will rise on the top of the container while the watery part remains on the bottom.
- You will have to mix or swirl your milk bottle before feeding it to your baby to make sure they benefit from all the nutrients and vitamins inside of it.
- If your breastmilk is bad, you will notice that the two layers of milk will not mix just as well when you swirl the bottle.
- In addition, breastmilk that is expired will remain separated. Even more apparent is that you will see chunks of fat on the surface of the milk that will not dissolve. This is a clear sign that your breastmilk is not good anymore.
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B) Does it have an odd smell?
Smelling your breastmilk is a great way to check its quality as long as you store it in the fridge or at room temperature.
- However, breastmilk might smell different even if it is still good, so you should always use this method in combination with a second one as it is not so reliable by itself.
- If your breastmilk smells sour or rancid, it is a pretty good sign that it might be bad, and you shouldn’t feed it to your baby.
- For breastmilk that was frozen, the sour smell is not always an indication that your milk went sour. Mothers with a high lipase level will have fatter breastmilk that might smell sour or even have a soapy texture when it is defrosted.
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C) Taste the breastmilk
Tasting your breastmilk is also a very efficient way to decide if it is still good to feed it to your baby.
- To use this method correctly, you should taste your milk while it is fresh, too, so you can tell the difference when you taste it again.
- A rancid or sour taste means your breastmilk is bad. Usually, if your breastmilk is bad, it will also present other signs besides the funny taste. This method is highly efficient for refrigerated breastmilk.
- Still, it might be confusing for frozen milk due to the same lipase level. Breastmilk with a higher lipase concentration might taste sour when you defrost it, even if it is not bad yet.
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Bonus tip: To know how the lipase level affects the taste of your breastmilk when you defrost it, try freezing just one bottle of milk for a short amount of time.
You can leave the breastmilk container in the freezer for a week before you defrost it and give it a taste and smell check. In a week, there is no chance of your milk going bad, and if it still tastes and smells sour, it means you have a high level of lipase, and you shouldn’t rely on these two methods when you are testing defrosted milk.
As you can see, there is no need to toss away unused breastmilk that expired when there are still plenty of things you can do with it.
For example, use it as part of your skincare routine, at bath time, or even as a home remedy for injuries or part of your favorite jewelry.
All these methods help you save your breastmilk from being tossed and give it even more value.
