Advice on hand expressing colostrum please

[corinne97]

I'm 5 days overdue with no signs of labour. My midwife is really busy and has struggled to fit me in for an appointment. I spoke to her on the phone and she said to try hand expressing milk in order to induce labour. I have been looking up how to do it and every article says to store the milk in a syringe, but haven't been given any by midwife. Do I need to store the colostrum? Will hand expressing effect the quality of the first milk I produce after birth?

You can obtain syringes from a pharmacy. 10 ml ones would probably be sufficient. Hand expressing is not necessarily straightforward and some guidance would be helpful. Can you contact a breastfeeding adviser? It can be useful to have some expressed colostrum, but you need advice on how to store it, if you plan to feed it to your baby.

Nipple stimulation can sometimes bring on labour, you don't need to specifically express or collect what comes out.

It won't affect your milk when baby comes.

Get syringes from a pharmacy, either 5 or 10ml then freeze in the freezer (not an ice box type one).

You don't have to keep the colostrum but it is handy to have some 'in stock' in case you need it. As pps have said, you can get syringes from the pharmacy or midwife if they have a main number - you might be able to collect a batch without an apt. They need to be sterile in individual packets. You can suck up any colostrum that comes out using the syringe.

If you're not worried about keeping the colostrum, cup your nipple with your handle and gently squeeze working round each boob. The colostrum should start to drip out of our nipple so just wipe it up if you don't want it. Don't worry if nothing comes out either. Try every 2-3hours max. DD was in special care and they wanted loads so I kept expressing and bruised my boobs!

It would be worth checking if your maternity unit has a specialist breastfeeding midwife you can contact who might be able to pop round and show you what to do, and give you some syringes. It takes a bit of practice: I had 1ml syringes and struggled to fill even half at first but tried again every few hours and quickly got better at it, that was post-natally though.

Don’t worry too much about collecting it as you can always do that once he’s born if he’s struggling to latch on and feed.

I’m trying the same thing at the moment. I’m 38 weeks and have been told to try collecting colostrum. I got given some small syringes by my midwife but was told you can buy them from the pharmacy if I want more.
It’s a good idea if you do want to breast feed as it can take 3/4 days for your milk to come in and even just a couple of extra mls of colostrum will fill baby up till it does.
The trouble I’m having is nothing is coming out. I’ve watched videos etc so I’m pretty sure I’m doing it right but I have been told it can be very difficult.
My friend is a health visitor and told me about this website. I’ll try post a link. It’s full of info about breast feeding and expressing.
www.laleche.org.uk/

Do you have gestational diabetes op? Or is it purely to try and bring on labour? There's no need to express and store colostrum at this stage. I've heard that nipple stimulating can work but you have to do it for hours and, well if you're not ready then you're not ready.

10 ml syringe?!
That's enormous!

A 1ml syringe will be more than enough.

I'm 38+4 and been using a breastpump (hand expressing doesn't work for me even when I'm full of milk) and I get a couple of drops out. Not even 0.1ml though. I don't know if I can be bothered with it tbh.

Can't add much to what has been said above - but please don't be discouraged if you can't get anything out. I tried hand expressing to get labour moving (after my waters broke) and I absolutely couldn't squeeze anything out, for love nor money, it was impossible. The technique is quite hard to get the hand of TBH and I'd definitely say being shown by a midwife is the way to go. It's really thick and sticky and there's also a definite knack to getting it into the syringe. I only got the hang of it once in hospital where midwives showed me what to do.

If you can't get hold of syringes then it's fine to just express and let anything you get out go to waste, although obviously if you can collect it then that's great as you can give it to baby if you need to.

I had expressed from about 37 weeks, it takes about 4-5 days before you actually start seeing a good amount coming out, I think for the first day or 2 I only managed to collect half a 1ml syringe.
If you are really only interested in nipple stimulation for labour and not too worried about collection then just go ahead with it a few times a day and don’t stress about how much you’re collecting (if you’re storing it at all).
One thing which definitely helps is massaging your boobs first, they say downward strokes but I found that uncomfortable so just a general soft massage for 5 mins on each before starting.
There are loads of good videos on YouTube so if you can’t get to see a midwife for a few days don’t hang around, you may feel like you’re not getting anywhere initially but it will happen!! Good luck

MagicalCreatures try it in the bath and whilst watching videos of newborns (such as obem or on YouTube.)