Pump question, possibly mold?

[Rymel12]

When cleaning out my medela pump, I removed the little white membrane on the vent and saw some chunky white sticky residue. I clean all pump parts after every use,but had not been removing the vent. Was this mold? I hear milk fat can appear as sticky, but I don't know exactly how. I meticulously removed every bit of it, but now I'm scared of the milk my LO has been drinking. Anyone have any experience with this?

 

[seaweed eater]

It was probably mold those things get moldy really fast, unfortunately. You do need to remove the membrane, and even if you do that regularly, it can be hard to prevent them from getting moldy. The trick is to soak with a splash of vinegar -- much better at getting the residue than just soap.

As for the safety of the milk, I guess it is just whatever you are comfortable with and can afford to toss I had some in the freezer so I tossed about 2 days' worth of fresh plus a few recent frozen bags when the same thing happened to me. Personally, I think if it smelled ok and I couldn't see anything funky inside, I would feed recently pumped milk rather than introducing formula. Maybe strain it first. But if you have some frozen, do whatever you are comfortable with.

 

[Rymel12]

Figures, I just started storing and freezing, only had a small stash though. What an annoying little pump part! Thanks for the vinegar tip, hadn't heard that.