Rotating stash -- good idea?

I have heard it preached many a time that one should rotate their stash
of frozen EBM. Okay, fine, makes sense. But what are the implications
of this on the benefits of mom's antibodies?

DS -cannot- get sick. A cold is fine, but croup, RSV, influenza, etc.,
could be fatal. When I start back at work next month, I will be
pumping while at work and DH will give DS my EBM. If he takes the
oldest from the freezer and I freeze what I pump, won't DS not be
benefited as much as he would be if every day he was given the EBM
pumped the day before? I had envisioned that the antibodies that were
transferred had a lot to do with what bugs I encounter (or have) *now*
so that milk pumped in June will have antibodies to June illnesses, for
example. Is this not correct?

I am not about to throw out my freezer stash, but I am beginning to
think that maybe it will have to be our "emergency" supply and maybe we
should rely on current milk for DS. Advice appreciated. :-)

-Carlye
DS 6-2-06
DD 9-29-04

"Carlye" wrote and I snipped:
I have heard it preached many a time that one should rotate their stash
of frozen EBM. Okay, fine, makes sense. But what are the implications
of this on the benefits of mom's antibodies?

DS -cannot- get sick. A cold is fine, but croup, RSV, influenza, etc.,
could be fatal. When I start back at work next month, I will be
pumping while at work and DH will give DS my EBM. If he takes the
oldest from the freezer and I freeze what I pump, won't DS not be
benefited as much as he would be if every day he was given the EBM
pumped the day before?

I think you might have misunderstood, or someone wasn't clear. Yes, you
should rotate your freezer stash, but only when you're actually freezing EBM
or using frozen EBM. It's not necessary to freeze the milk every day. IOW,
when you're working and pumping, don't freeze the milk!

What you can do, assuming you're working M-F, is to have DH give DS the milk
you pumped the day before and refrigerated. On Monday, he can use the
oldest frozen milk; you can freeze the milk you pump on Friday. So, 4 out
of 5 days, DS will get fresh milk with the antibodies to bugs in your
current environment. Well, 6 out of 7, if you also nurse him on the
weekends.

If you don't pump enough each day, DH can supplement with oldest frozen
milk. If you pump more than enough for a day, you can freeze the extra. In
reality, the EBM from Friday will last until Monday in the refrigerator, but
you wouldn't be rotating your frozen stash if you did that all the time.

Hope this makes sense and helps your dilemma,
-Patty, mom of 1+2

PattyMomVA wrote:
I think you might have misunderstood, or someone wasn't clear. Yes, you
should rotate your freezer stash, but only when you're actually freezing EBM
or using frozen EBM. It's not necessary to freeze the milk every day. IOW,
when you're working and pumping, don't freeze the milk!

Well, I think we're not understanding each other, to an extent. I
-have- a relatively large stash of frozen EBM -- maybe 150 - 200
ounces. It has been kept in a fridge-freezer so only has about a six
month shelf life. I know one doesn't need to freeze EBM to use it (I
never froze EBM when I was nursing DD, but then again, I never had any
extra to build up a stash) -- but I also thought that in order to
avoid tossing the stuff I have frozen (most of which is from the first
3 weeks of DS's life) rotating the stash, i.e., freezing the freshest
and using the oldest, would be the normal way to go about it.


What you can do, assuming you're working M-F, is to have DH give DS the milk
you pumped the day before and refrigerated. On Monday, he can use the
oldest frozen milk; you can freeze the milk you pump on Friday. So, 4 out
of 5 days, DS will get fresh milk with the antibodies to bugs in your
current environment. Well, 6 out of 7, if you also nurse him on the
weekends.

This is a good schedule. Eventually we may get through the frozen
milk. And I guess if I have to throw some of it, that's not the end of
the world.

Hope this makes sense and helps your dilemma,

Thanks, Patty, it does. I appreciate it!

-Carlye

"Carlye" wrote in message
ups.com...
PattyMomVA wrote:
I think you might have misunderstood, or someone wasn't clear. Yes, you
should rotate your freezer stash, but only when you're actually freezing
EBM
or using frozen EBM. It's not necessary to freeze the milk every day.
IOW,
when you're working and pumping, don't freeze the milk!

Well, I think we're not understanding each other, to an extent. I
-have- a relatively large stash of frozen EBM -- maybe 150 - 200
ounces. It has been kept in a fridge-freezer so only has about a six
month shelf life. I know one doesn't need to freeze EBM to use it (I
never froze EBM when I was nursing DD, but then again, I never had any
extra to build up a stash) -- but I also thought that in order to
avoid tossing the stuff I have frozen (most of which is from the first
3 weeks of DS's life) rotating the stash, i.e., freezing the freshest
and using the oldest, would be the normal way to go about it.


I would suggest freezing one pumping session worth per day, and using "old"
frozen EBM for that feeding(s). That way you'd be giving mostly fresh EBM,
but still rotating through your stash at a reasonable rate. I ended up
using up my stash to make up for output not equalling input, which can
happen if you get sick, have a busy day at work and miss a pump, etc. I'd
then pump on weekends to replace what I took out of the stash.

Amy

That would be the best thing to do to rotate stash, use the oldest etc.
But, freezing the milk pretty much kills the antibodies in it from what I
understand, so from an immunological point of view, the frozen milk is not
that good and it would be better to use fresh when possible and frozen only
if you have to.


"Carlye" wrote in message
ups.com...
PattyMomVA wrote:
I think you might have misunderstood, or someone wasn't clear. Yes, you
should rotate your freezer stash, but only when you're actually freezing
EBM
or using frozen EBM. It's not necessary to freeze the milk every day.
IOW,
when you're working and pumping, don't freeze the milk!

Well, I think we're not understanding each other, to an extent. I
-have- a relatively large stash of frozen EBM -- maybe 150 - 200
ounces. It has been kept in a fridge-freezer so only has about a six
month shelf life. I know one doesn't need to freeze EBM to use it (I
never froze EBM when I was nursing DD, but then again, I never had any
extra to build up a stash) -- but I also thought that in order to
avoid tossing the stuff I have frozen (most of which is from the first
3 weeks of DS's life) rotating the stash, i.e., freezing the freshest
and using the oldest, would be the normal way to go about it.


What you can do, assuming you're working M-F, is to have DH give DS the
milk
you pumped the day before and refrigerated. On Monday, he can use the
oldest frozen milk; you can freeze the milk you pump on Friday. So, 4
out
of 5 days, DS will get fresh milk with the antibodies to bugs in your
current environment. Well, 6 out of 7, if you also nurse him on the
weekends.

This is a good schedule. Eventually we may get through the frozen
milk. And I guess if I have to throw some of it, that's not the end of
the world.

Hope this makes sense and helps your dilemma,

Thanks, Patty, it does. I appreciate it!

-Carlye

ok, so you pump current milk for DS, that's the best for him but what do you
do with the milk that you pump, the last day of the week, it would last
unfrozen to the first day of the next week, but it will deteriorate over
that time, which then gives you the chance to put that in the freezer and
rotate stash. One day of older milk shouldn't do him any harm, he's going to
be getting the fresh stuff with the antibodies from you during the rest of
the day.

Putting one days worth in the freezer is a different ball game to putting
everything in and out, it's not just what antibodies are present, but the
quality of it does deteriorate, so I'm not even sure if you get active
antibodies at all from frozen milk.

Anne

Stormlady wrote:

That would be the best thing to do to rotate stash, use the oldest etc.
But, freezing the milk pretty much kills the antibodies in it from what I
understand, so from an immunological point of view, the frozen milk is not
that good and it would be better to use fresh when possible and frozen only
if you have to.


Freezing does not change the function of the antibody, although
freeze/thaw/freeze/thaw cycles may compromise proteins in the milk. As
a research scientist, we use previously frozen antibodies all the time
in experiments and freezing properly does not affect their immunogenicity.

I didn't read it in its entirety, but there is a study that said human
milk stored at -20 degrees C will retain its immunologic components for
12 months:

Lawrence RA.
Milk banking: the influence of storage procedures and subsequent
processing on immunologic components of human milk.
Adv Nutr Res. 2001;10:389-404. Review.

c.

"c." wrote in message
k.net...
Stormlady wrote:

That would be the best thing to do to rotate stash, use the oldest etc.
But, freezing the milk pretty much kills the antibodies in it from what I
understand, so from an immunological point of view, the frozen milk is
not that good and it would be better to use fresh when possible and
frozen only if you have to.


Freezing does not change the function of the antibody, although
freeze/thaw/freeze/thaw cycles may compromise proteins in the milk. As a
research scientist, we use previously frozen antibodies all the time in
experiments and freezing properly does not affect their immunogenicity.

I didn't read it in its entirety, but there is a study that said human
milk stored at -20 degrees C will retain its immunologic components for 12
months:

Lawrence RA. Milk banking: the influence of storage procedures and
subsequent processing on immunologic components of human milk.
Adv Nutr Res. 2001;10:389-404. Review.

c.

Oh, good, I stand corrected then. I was under the impression that killing
the antibodies was one of the drawbacks to freezing.

Oh, good, I stand corrected then. I was under the impression that killing
the antibodies was one of the drawbacks to freezing.

but something does change, Mary W dug out a couple of things, the names were
malondialehyde, gluthathione peroxidase, something else in the abstract
suggests they are lipids (fats), but they may be enzymes that act on lipids!

so something does change, but I can't give you an exact description of what!

I'm not sure what happens to antibodies over several days with the fridge,
but most people seem to come down on better to keep milk in the fridge for a
few days than freeze, however lots of people do end up freezing milk on a
Friday as a good chance to rotate stash.

Microwaving is out due to the risk of "hot spots", but it also would kill
antibodies.

Anne