Does your milk smell like soap?

Over the weekend, a breastfeeding friend of mine expressed concern that her milk smelled "soapy" - as if she hadn't rinsed out the bottle enough. I told her that she perhaps had an issue with the enzyme lipase and would need to scald the milk before freezing it. Unfortunately, that was ALL I could tell her - I didn't know what caused it, for example. So, of course, Dr. Google came to my rescue and directed me towards Kelly Mom. Basically, all human milk has lipase, but some of us gals simply have more of it - I've always suspected I had this issue, but since my son rarely took a bottle, I never bothered to worry about it much.

Anyway, per Kelly Mom, the solution is simple:

To scald milk:

* Heat milk to about 180 F (82 C), or until you see little bubbles around the edge of the pan (not to a full, rolling boil).
* Quickly cool and store the milk.

Scalding the milk will destroy some of the antiinfective properties of the milk and may lower some nutrient levels, but this is not likely to be an issue unless all of the milk that baby is receiving has been heat-treated.