A mother vacationing in Hokkaido, Japan, went viral on TikTok for drinking almost 4.5 liters (1.2 gallons) of her own breast milk.
Uploaded by Singaporean Jemie Lim (@jemielimtiktok) last week, the one-minute video documents the mother’s journey from Singapore to Hokkaido. During her trip, Lim can be seen drinking her own express breast milk (EBM) as “unexpected circumstances” prevented her from freezing it all.
“I drank 4450ML of my own breastmilk in Hokkaido,” the video’s captions read. “My initial plan was to store my expressed breastmilk (ebm) in hotel freezer but unexpected circumstances happened so only first day of my EBM being stored and brought back to Singapore successfully.”
In an interview with Must Share News, Lim shared that she was on vacation in Hokkaido from Dec. 7-12. Although Lim had previously contacted the hotel to use their freezer to store her EBM, the hotel had warned that they would be unable to guarantee the quality of the milk. After the first day, the mother discovered some of her milk had not been frozen.
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“I was worried all my milk would be spoilt by end of the trip,” Lim said, deciding to drink her EBM rather than let it go to waste.
At the start of the video, Jemie films herself drinking her EBM on the flight and at her hotel. After arriving at Hokkaido, the mother notes the lack of nursing rooms, consequently pumping in a “random place.”
By the end of her trip, Lim was only able to freeze and bring home her EBM from the first day of her vacation.
The video of the mother pumping and drinking her own breast milk went viral on TikTok, garnering over 139,000 views and prompting responses from her viewers.
“It’s perfectly fine and ok, stay firm and don’t bother the negative comments from people who don’t understand,” a user wrote in support of the mother.
“So hmm.. Is it considered Hokkaido Milk?” commented one user.
“Reduce reuse and recycle,” another commented.
In response to a comment questioning why Lim didn’t just throw away her EMB, Lim wrote, “[Can’t] just throw away, just that I very heart pain to throw as pumping use up alot of energy.”
When asked about the taste, Lim described it as “sweet.”
