Hi all,
I've been harvesting colostrum since 27 weeks pregnant, now 38 weeks and doing absolutely fine. I am doing this in conjunction with advice from my midwives and the La Leche League: www.laleche.org.uk/antenatal-expression-of-colostrum/
I was spurred into writing a fairly detailed blog about my experience of harvesting colostrum in my second pregnancy to relieve breast discomfort after receiving some very unsupportive and negative responses from a Facebook breast feeding forum. Not content with the 'advice' given I have made my own decision to continue with expressing and storing my colostrum and now I have a significant quantity in the freezer ready for the new baby.
I wanted to create this thread as there is simply zero detailed info out there for women who have a healthy low risk pregnancy and may be interested in expressing colostrum to relieve breast discomfort. There might be a couple of studies but I've done a lot of Googling and not come across any, so feel free to let me know if there's anything in addition to the supportive advice offered by the La Leche League.
So, here's the link to my blog: antenatal-expressing-colostrum.blogspot.com/
I've added a couple of images of graphs from my colostrum harvesting diary.
This is not medical advice - just recording my experience
As expressing colostrum in the early third trimester is a highly controversial issue due to a risk in some women of preterm labour, I am expecting a lot backlash and negative comments on this post from people who may not have actually read my first blog post at 27 weeks. But don't worry, I've got some experience in dealing with these sorts of responses and I will continue to express colostrum until birth and record my experience in my blog.
Apologies for the defensive walls so early on, however due to some of the things that have been said to me about what I am doing, I'm preparing myself too! Happy to answer any questions anyone may have about my colostrum harvesting experience and if anyone has any other supportive advice or tips, it would be great to know too :)