Thrush and donor milk?

[Kewpie]

A friend of mine has offered me her freezer stash of milk for my son who is bottlefed. However, a good portion of it was from when she was on antibiotics for mastitis and dealing with thrush. Could my son contract thrush from her frozen milk? He's 9 months old if that matters.

Thanks!

[puddle]

This could be a concern. From kellymom: Many sources recommend that mothers do not freeze expressed milk for later use when they are being treated for thrush. We do know that freezing deactivates yeast, but does not kill it (Rosa 1990), so there is a theoretical risk that milk expressed during a thrush outbreak could reinfect baby at a later date. However, there have been no studies that tell us whether or not this defrosted milk is really a problem.

You can heat the milk to boiling, which will kill the yeast as well as most antibodies, but this is still more nutritious than formula. HTH

[Cate]

I had a very bad case of thrush early on with my dd. I froze some milk while I had the thrush. Then later, after we had the thrush treated and were clear, gave her a bottle of the milk from when we had thrush. Sure enough, she got it again. I learned that lesson the hard way. So, yes, it is a concern.