Antenatal expression of colostrum

[ComeOnEileen11]

Am currently 36 weeks with DC2. Initially I struggled to breastfeed DC1 and it was a real battle for him to latch. I was having to figure out expressing in the early days and it was about 8/9 days before he was properly latching.

I'm a bit worried I will have the same issue this time. Or similar. So now that I have noticeable colostrum, I'm thinking of expressing syringes in advance and putting them in the freezer.

Did anyone build up a stash beforehand? Is there anything that I should be aware of?

I did. In the end we didn't use many of them after DS was born, but it was nice to have them just in case. Bought the syringes on Amazon - ones with a little cap on the end.
There is some concern that expressing may bring on preterm labour, but many women feed their older child throughout pregnancy without this happening, and as you're 36 weeks now anyway I wouldn't worry.
Having said this, a couple of my friends have just had their second babies and both say that feeding is so much easier this time around - I hope this is the case for you! Good luck and congratulations

@PatrickMerricksGoshawk thanks for that. Did you freeze it in the syringes? I've got a bunch of them from last time that I kept and am planning to sterilise them. DH suggested freezing it in weaning pots which I'm not too sure about!

I did because I had gestational diabetes and was having a planned c-section. I wanted to reduce any potential for blood sugar issues.

I collected it in the 1ml syringes, labelled it and froze it. Took it into hospital with me in a Tupperware box with an ice pack. DS had most of it in theatre - they found a cyst that had to be removed and delayed me getting to recovery. It was a relief to know that he was getting my milk while I couldn't do anything about it. He had a bit more on the ward and then I hand expressed for a few more days.

Definitely worth doing but check with your hospital. It was unheard of at mine last year so they didn't have a freezer for it. I was the talk of the ward, in a nice way! They said they had a team looking into how to help women with it but just weren't ready yet.

Good luck

I did because I had gestational diabetes. I was really glad of it - it took about 36 hours to get DS to latch so it was great that he didn't need to have a bottle in that time.

@ComeOnEileen11 yes I froze it in the syringes, although I didn't express directly into them - tried that and lost too many drops! I expressed into a little plastic pot and then drew it into the syringe. In the end we didn't take it to hospital as we hadn't got round to coming up with a plan for where to keep it when we got there (at 2 weeks past due date ) but I would have sent DH home for it if we needed it. I suppose with COVID you'll need to consider this more than I did.