Unable to harvest colostrum 6 days left :-(

[BoyMumToBe34]

6 days until c section. Tried harvesting tonight colostrum and nothing but the tiniest droplet (needle head sized) of what looked like clear fluid from one nipple. When I hear some mums had to wait 4-5 days for milk production or colostrum, I don’t understand, does the baby starve for the first few days with zero colostrum/milk? At what point do you offer some ready made formula? Should I take some with me to hospital. Any advice :-(

Please don't worry, your body is still gearing up for feeding.
If it's your first pregnancy your breasts will also being doing this for the first time. Those who can harvest colostrum successfully in the weeks leading up to birth are usually those who have breastfed before.
When the placenta separates from the uterus, prolactin is released in huge amounts which allows for the colostrum and milk production to rapidly increase.
Just keep stimulating, it won't do any harm.

Harvesting colostrum wasn't a "thing" a decade ago. I'd never heard it mentioned with DC1&2. But by DC3 it had become a subject of discussion on places like MN. I don't recall midwives ever mentioning it though.

Point being, it's really not necessary.
Babies are a lot more effective at nursing than you'll ever be trying to harvest/pump.

My dd is 16 and was born via c-section. We didn’t harvest colostrum. It wasn’t a thing at all. We had surgery and then started nursing in the recovery room. No formula. No syringes. No formula top ups unless something goes wrong and even then there are lots of strategies to increase milk production.

This. Dont worry OP. I never bothered with the colostrum thing. No one even mentioned it and I only had my first 3 years ago. On the table, within 20 minutes in a recovery room and breastfeeding. Its mental really.

Don’t stress op. I did harvest colostrum and in hindsight, it was absolutely no different to offering DD small amounts of formula.

When your milk comes in, just ditch the formula if you want to exclusively breastfeed. This is a really important point as having baby on the breast will dictate your milk supply (not to say it’s not completely fine to combination feed if that’s what you want, it’s just beneficial to understand the implications on milk supply etc).

Providing no issues with latch etc, baby will be effective at extracting colostrum - way more effective than hand or pump expressing!

ETA - what you got out does sound like colostrum btw!

I’ve had to top up with formula during the first 1-2 weeks of both my children because they were not gaining enough weight, and my milk took a while to come in / it took a while for supply to get established. But with some dedication to pumping to increase supply, I got to where I needed to go and then exclusively breastfed from that point forward. It makes sense to have some ready-made formula on hand during the first weeks just in case you’re in a similar situation.

I had my second in September. I was called in for induction at 36+6 so no time for colostrum collection. I tried with my daughter in 2020 but didn't get anything more than a few beads of milk but it did teach me how to hand express which was helpful for managing engorgement when my milk came in on day 2-3. She fed fine but had to be striped to a nappy every 3h to feed as she was rather sleepy.

My son slept for 12h at a time for the first 36h and wouldn't wake for a feed at all he had a breastfeed on delivery but struggled with low blood sugars after that. He had his blood sugars checked 4h after birth due to medication I was on and they were low. We couldn't get him to wake up so the midwives gave us a bottle of formula and he had about 15-20 ml which brought his blood sugars up. We had the same 4h after that and he had 10-15 ml formula and 1ml of colostrum I'd managed to collect between feeds. He still hadn't woken up after that and 4h he wouldn't take the formula but woke up during a collosal poo and breastfeed for about 3minutes. After that I was able to get him on the breast whilst sleeping for a few minutes and that was enough without formula top-ups. Midway through day 2 he was maintaining his blood sugars and didn't need further monitoring. He had a severe tongue tie picked up at birth and snipped on day 8 which wasn't helping as it made breast and bottle feeding difficult. He's not had any formula since day 2 and only had a 6% loss on day 6!

So to answer your question they need such a tiny amount of colostrum and they can support with formula very early if necessary

Also, don’t forget you need a baby to demand your nipples and to suck for seemingly hours on end to get the milk supply built up. If you race to supplement too quickly then it’s hard to get the necessary ‘order’ in from your baby. Cluster feeding is very normal and be led by wet nappies - as long as they are getting lots of wet nappies then they are getting enough milk.

My baby was in NICU for three days after I gave birth by section and was initially fed through a tube. I tried to pump but couldn’t manage it. When she got out day four she latched on and I ended up breastfeeding her until she was one when she self weaned.
Stop stressing out. Your body knows what it’s doing you don’t need to ‘harvest’ anything.

Another one adding to the “no need to do this” chorus. I breastfed v successfully for ages with both my two, and never “harvested” anything in advance - just started trying to breastfeed them when they arrived. I was pretty terrible at expressing even when in full throes of BF too - it took twice as long to get half as much. I found babies were much better at getting the milk to come out than I was. It wasn’t completely plain sailing - I got a fair bit of help and advice, googled a lot, had mastitis a few times. But it all worked out great. And if it doesn’t or you want to mix or choose something else, formula is just fine.

I could only get a drop or two when pregnant but still feeding now at 2.

Looking back I think I had the wrong technique and was trying too near the nipple rather than on the breast itself.

Lucy Webber Feeding Support is a great instagram account for all things breastfeeding.

Good luck with the c section and congratulations on your pregnancy