What on earth is colostrum ‘Harvesting’ ??

[Mumtothreegirlies]

I had my last baby 11 years ago. Breastfed all my babies but never was colostrum harvesting ever mentioned. Now on MN it appears all the pregnant ladies are doing it and bringing vials of it into hospital. What on earth is it for exactly?
why not just breastfeed your baby so they get it that way? Surely there aren’t millions of babies refusing to latch forever or how did humans survive for thousands of years? I’m really scratching my head here so please help me out 🤔

I didn’t say it was…

I agree with PP - what was your hope behind starting this thread?

You asked a question and have come back at the many reasonable responses with somewhat goady comments (and a bit of casual racism).

You seem to believe that people are…lying(?) about having difficulty starting breastfeeding.

OP, I feel like you made up your mind before you even started this thread that colostrum harvesting is unnecessary and not worth it.

It really doesn’t affect you if some women want to harvest their colostrum. It might be beneficial, it might go unused. Yes it’s a bit of a faff but as one of the previous posters said, surely women having more choice is only a good thing. I know a few people who work in neo-natal units and they all recommend it. Other than those recommended not to do it on the NHS website, there aren’t really any negatives other than a bit of wasted time if you don’t end up using it.

I had Gestational diabetes in both pregnancies and was very unwell after my first was born by emergency c-section. I struggled to get him to feed, and it's so important that their blood sugars don't drop after a GD pregnancy.

So for my second, I expressed Colostrum just in case I wasn't well enough to feed, luckily I managed to latch her on, but it was there if needed.

I was so glad I had collected colostrum prior to birth. My baby struggled to latch and wouldn't for the first 24hours. I was expressing colostrum and collecting it in a syringe for the first day and night but they were still hungry. At one point I was expressing and not getting any more and baby was screaming with hunger. My husband brought the frozen colostrum in and they took 10ml straight away. By 48hrs they were latching and my milk came in around 72hours. I was glad to have been able to give that that rather than a bottle of formula that would have stretched their stomach and made it harder to satisfy them with colostrum alone to get them back on the breast.

I had gestational diabetes and harvested some a few weeks before birth. It was really tough, I saw women on the GD Facebook group fill entire syringes just watching telly whereas I’d just get a few globs after nearly half an hour of trying. I didn’t get much but a few ml here and there.

Then after the birth breastfeeding was super tough as DD was a ‘lazy feeder’ according to the midwives, she’d latch okay but not want to suck. The colostrum I had brought with me helped top her up, especially as her blood sugar was low too.

maybe don’t worry so much about the choices other women make when they don’t impact you.

Racism? Don’t be silly come on now

I literally have 0 issues with anyone who chooses to harvest their colostrum. I was just being nosey as to why because the first I heard of it was today. After researching on the nhs website it does turn out its not necessary for most women and babies so it’s obviously not as common as I first thought.

Yes gestational diabetes can be tough on babies for the first few days. Most used to be bottle fed for this reason so it’s good that there’s an option now that they push so that all babies get the colostrum not just some.

Yes these threads are tediously sneery aren't they. "Oh why are these silly women doing these silly things. I never needed to and I just cannot possibly fathom it despite a thread full of people telling me how it benefitted them"

Look, I'd like to see more breastfeeding too, and I think most breastfeeding problems probably are solvable, with the right support at the right time. But we've lost a huge amount of cultural knowledge and support for breastfeeding, and lots of women don't get the right support, and what good is knowing that her problem might be solvable under different circumstances to a woman who's struggling badly right now, other than to make her feel like shit?

As an optional and not that arduous thing to do pre-birth, this can help some women and some babies, and support breastfeeding longer term.

It's not medically necessary for a lot of women.

But if these otherwise healthy women have a crash c section and are in recovery unconscious and can't get their baby to the breast? Or their baby is born with a restricted tongue and can't physically latch? Or even they get their baby to the breast immediately and are told it looks great and only hurts as their nipples need to toughen up, but 24 hours later they are cracked and bleeding and can't bear the thought but are desperate to BF?

Those women benefit from having harvested colostrum even though it's not deemed medically necessary.

Unsure as to why it was necessary to start another thread when I literally made one this morning that you could have asked the question on?

Glad breastfeeding went so well for you.

Who does it? No one was ever pushing me to collect colostrum, it was my choice. My midwife never even mentioned it.

I didn't bother then was so ill after I gave birth that I couldn't attempt feeding - even just to try to squeeze a bit out. They did ask if I'd brought colostrum and I was really annoyed with myself they I hadn't.

Baby had to have formula for the first few feeds but they gave it out of a cup as I was very keen to try bf so the midwife didn't want him to get used to the bottle

For some people this is great, me, not so great. I tried to harvest before my second baby as he was a scheduled c section at 37 weeks, but when J started, it was triggering labour (cramping and light bleeding started as soon as I started collecting). If a prem labour risk I really don't recommend it. I took my one syringe to the hospital with me and they put it in a freezer and lost it, so it was pretty pointless anyway!

Given this have a raised body mass index (BMI) being one of the times it’s recommended its actually relevant to a very large number of women