New mum shocked after breast milk turns orange to suit baby's needs

Rebecca Price, 31, from Durham, has been breast feeding her four-week-old daughter since she was born and her breast milk is usually a pastel yellow colour.

Breast milk can also have blue, pink, green or beige hues and when Rebecca’s young daughter was congested, her breast milk turned orange.

Colour changes, which can be a shock to new mums, is completely normal as breast milk contains antibodies which are passed to the baby to provide immunity against illnesses and infections.

When Rebecca had been away from her daughter for four hours, her body assumed that her baby was dehydrated. Her breast milk then turned almost transparent to restore the newborn’s hydration levels.

Mums produce different amounts of breast milk depending on their baby’s needs and milk texture and colour changes as their baby grows.

“Women are amazing,” the beautician said. “I only noticed the changes in my breast milk when I froze it.

“On storage bags I write the time and date, so that’s how I worked out it was changing depending on my daughter’s needs.

“I was really keen to breastfeed so I took as much advice from professionals as possible.

“A midwife had mentioned to me when I was pregnant that my breast milk will change depending on my daughter’s needs.

“I just didn’t realise it would look so obvious until I looked at the frozen milk together.”

Rebecca and her husband Jack are ‘newbies’ to breastfeeding, according to the new mum, who is hoping to breastfeed ‘for a while’.

“[I] Will listen to my body and my baby’s needs. I’m not putting any time pressure on it.”

The National Childbirth Trust reports that breastmilk can also change in response to the baby or mother’s illness, with increased immune cell levels to aid recovery.

NCT breastfeeding counsellor Joanna Daniels said: "Breast milk is an ever-changing live substance that responds to the baby.  

“When a baby is ill it’s likely that the mother’s milk changes to increase the number of antibodies and leukocytes which help protect her baby from illness.  

“It’s likely that the baby passes the infection to the mother when breastfeeding and her body responds."

Rebecca shared her breastmilk discovery on TikTok and the video has now garnered over 400,00 views and 40,000 likes.

Mums flooded the comments with their own stories of colour-changing breastmilk.

One person wrote: “Mine goes so watery it’s almost blue when it’s hot.”

Another added: “Mine went blue and greenish when my son had a nasty cold. It’s amazing what our bodies can do.”

While someone else called breast milk ‘liquid gold’.