The low down on hand expressing into a syringe...

[Emmiedarling]

I posted a little while ago in someone else's thread about needing/wanting to hand express before I have my c-section in two weeks... (due to GD)

Well, that is still the plan, but i haven't a clue how to get the show on the road. Today I went to Boots and bougth 4 sterile syringes. I had a show tonight and just checked out my 'hand expressing technique' seems to be working.

So now what?! When do i need to start doing it for real? Do i literally get a syringe and suck up the dribbles from my nipples? (Im sorry for being so blunt, but I really dont have a clue) Presumably I will only get a TINY amount - but I guess I cant keep 'topping' up?

Then what do I do? Keep it in the fridge? How long does it 'keep' ? or should i freeze it?

Oh oh oh so many questions! Advice appreciated!

Can you get any screw caps for the syringes? At the hospital they gave me these so I could cap the end of the syringe and express into the wider part at the top.

I would suggest freezing it is your best option. I imagine you will only get small amounts to start with - it took me an hour to express 1ml the first time.

You could put some in a syringe and keep it in the fridge to top up over a day, say, then put it in the freezer?

I had to do this when DS was in neonatal when he was 1-3 days old in order to get milk supply going. I did as you describe above, literally squeezing some out and sucking it up with the syringe, the annoying thing was having to sort of invert the syringe and push some air out regularly as it is so easy to suck up air not colostrum, then carry on.

Am pretty sure you can freeze what you've expressed, I never needed to as it was given to DS within a very short time, but I know others on here have frozen it and should be able to advise on storing it.