colostrum harvesting-faqs

[thrifttwig]

Hi all
I'm currently 35+3 and I am planned for an induction on Thursday when I'm 36 weeks. I'm type 1 diabetic and have had some poor control with my blood sugars past few weeks. On Friday I was speaking with my consultant who brought up colostrum harvesting and she told me can help when baby is born with regulating blood sugars and also is proven to thin cervix in prep for my induction.
I breastfed my ds for 5 months so know how to hand express etc and have had leaking boobs for past 2 weeks so I started yesterday using sterile syringes and stoppers. I just have a couple of questions if anyone knows the answers to!
How much would it take to regulate baby's blood sugar following birth (if needed) ? I've managed to get 2.5ml yesterday from doing 3 times a day. Today I have only done twice and already got 2.5ml.
Sorry if next question sounds thick but I'm worried about bringing labour on as baby's head is engaged and getting braxton hicks. Can colostrum harvesting do this?

Harvesting is a strange word! I stored colostrum in syringes daily as I had tons not diabetic - DS got a belly full of it the moment he was born - it kind of got him all excited and he latched on for the fresh stuff - I did it after a shower and stored in syringes

I have gestational diabetes and this has never been mentioned to me!

Once harvested how long can you freeze for? do you treat it the same as expressed milk for defrosting etc? Where do you get sterile syringes and stoppers?

They can be frozen for a month or more if you have a decent freezer.

I don't have diabetes but my son was drowsy and not feeding post birth so I hand expressed. Was given 1ml for each missed feed and this did him well, he started to feed well before I needed the 4th syringe full. He did have 1 good feed before the syringes though.

The research study conducted into nipple stimulation and cervical ripening required three hours of breast stimulation a day and all the women were over 38 weeks. There's not much evidence that it will bring on labour and especially not as early as 35 weeks.

I collected colostrum three times a day for 6 weeks before dd2's due date and she was still 8 days late, so I'm very skeptical about it softening my cervix!! You'll find you get more each time, I think I was up to about 7-10ml a day by the end.

Great thanks for all the information! I really don't want to bring any labour on so good news that it's unlikely! I've managed to get the sterile syringes from labour ward but no stoppers so gonna pop to chemist to see if they have any!

I don't even know what a stopper is... I just collected in the syringe and then froze them flat in a plastic bag. I was told you could use the same syringe for a day's worth of collection as long as you stored it in the back of the fridge between collections.

Oh that's good to know regarding stoppers! I just had visions of me spending time doing it then it all coming out! Like when you drop the bottle of milk you've just expressed and want to cry! Yes I've been using same syringe and then freezing daily

God, I was useless at expressing - I remember my dh making an ill timed joke about me literally crying over spilt milk. I think that cost him a trip to the supermarket for emergency cake.

I spent hours doing this before ds was born as instructed by the diabetic nurse. He did have mild hypoglycaemia when he was born but the paediatric consultant was not at all impressed by my syringes of colostrum and told me ds needed 20-40ml of formula per feed until his blood sugars were back up. He said I could give the colostrum too if I wanted... The diabetic nurse had told me to only bring a bit in "because there would be plenty of time to bring the rest in after the birth". So I only brought in 15ml. So all those hours of expressing were wasted. The consultants prefer formula in a bottle to treat hypoglycaemia. I wasnt happy with this as I'd been told antenatally that formula has been linked to type 1 where there is a family history but they were very forceful. I was told the alternative to formula was a glucose drip in SCBUeven though ds's results were borderline. So if you're at GWH Swindon I really wouldn't bother.

Sorry for the rant. There seemed to be a big disconnect between the advice they gave antenatally and what actually happened in practice so it might be worth double checking how your hospital actually treats neonatal hypoglycaemia before putting in too much effort.

Gulp. Yes I'm not at swindon but my hospital has been shoddy to say the least so far (croydon). Luckily I'm leaking it anyway so not too much bother. I won't get too many expectations! I just want to feel like I'm doing everything I can.
RNBRIE we must have similar poor humoured hubby's as I distinctly remember a similar situation happening!