How much colostrum to take to hospital?

[Sweetpea1989]

I’m 37 weeks and a c section booked at 39. I’ve been asked to try and harvest colostrum, I’ve managed 0.8ml in three goes and need to use a new siringe after 24 hours, but the midwife only gave me two that hold 1ml.

I’m not sure how much to take with me and if I should buy more siringes?

Any advice greatly appreciated!

It’s a while since I had a baby, but I’ve never heard of this! Is there a reason you can’t breastfeed? I must be missing something here sorry.

I think the idea is it can take a while for milk to come in when having a c section so it’s good to have the colostrum ready and waiting? I’m not 100% though tbh!

If you carry on expressing you may find that you gradually get a little more each time, so if you did buy some you might find you can fill them up quicker.

I think having any at all is great, though. Did the midwife tell you to use a new syringe after 24hrs? I used to do larger syringes over two days sometimes, I figured that if breast milk is ok in the fridge for at least 3 days then the same would apply to colostrum.

I've had two CS (first was under GA) and milk came in on day 3 both times. And honestly, I've have known lots of people have CS and they have never reported milk coming in late, I assumed it was more of a thing if you have a traumatic birth. I think it's more in case the baby has jaundice and they 'need to supplement' so you don't need to use formula or if you are having trouble getting the baby to latch.

Even if it does take a little longer for your milk to come in baby should be fine with colostrum until it does.

I had a baby in December and My midwife told me they only expect 0.3/0.4 ml per syringe so you've done really well to get 0.8ml .

My midwife only gave me a couple as well but I ordered some more of Amazon (identical to to the ones I'd been given of the midwife and properly sealed) because I wanted a bit more of a stash just in case.

That’s good to hear @gs124 did you use it all up in hospital??

For a normal c section im surprised that they mention to do this, you may not even need it.

Buy some more off amazon or from the pharmacy, and just do what you can, but if you really do end up needing to use it 2ml isnt going to be enough, Id say aim for more like 15-20ml if you can, to have a proper stash of it.

No I didn't need to give her it in the hospital as she was able to feed straight away. I ended up giving her one syringe a day before a feed for her first 5 days (because I had 5 syringes) on the midwives advice.

It's usually recommended when the baby is likely to be early. It doesn't do any harm and can be beneficial but most people don't need to worry about it.

I would get some more syringes from a pharmacy. Be cautious about ordering online as they can be from dodgy sources. And don't be tempted to go for 5ml ones! Total nightmare I had trying to express into those!

If you're getting them from a pharmacy you may want to ring ahead to check they actually have them as I tried a few pharmacies and none of them had them in. Just so you don't have a wasted trip in these strange times

I bought mine on amazon. Took 20 1ml syringes in with me. So glad I did, because I didn't see dd for 6 hours after she was born and then she was back in scbu and I was back in the HDU.

I bought my syringes off amazon. I think they were 1ml each? I managed to collect 10 syringes full in total frozen them and took to hospital. My DH gave them to our baby when I was in theatre for over a hour and half having a rather nasty tear repaired

Great advice thanks everyone!

Hi @Sweetpea1989 just wanted to say that I did similar to @Pinkflipflop85 - took 20 or so with me for my ELCS at 37+2 - midwives said that they'd never seen anyone bring so many with them 😂 (bought syringes off Amazon after the community midwife twice forgot to get me any 🤦).

I started expressing on the advice of our doula about 2 weeks before. It was slow going for a couple of days and I would put half filled syringes in the fridge for 24h so I could top up before freezing them, but I then got a bit competitive with myself and I was then managing to get a syringe from either side morning and night by the time we went in to hospital. In the event I was glad I did because our LO had a tongue tie so it definitely helped get the stuff into him and then it meant that I knew what I was doing to hand express more when feeding was difficult. I ended up pumping too and my milk supply was there - don't know for definite if it was due to all the colostrum expressing, but I have a hunch that it was!

Good luck 🤞

PS: had ELCS on Thursday afternoon and milk came in properly overnight Saturday/Sunday!