Harvesting colostrum

[Mummabear21324]

My midwife has gave me syringes and told me I can start collecting colostrum, I will be getting a section in a few weeks. I haven’t done this before and with previous children (both born early) I just expressed breast milk when they were born. I seem to be getting quite a good amount but if I continue each night for the next few weeks I will end up with a lot. I’m not sure how much is needed? I’m just freezing it until baby is born. What are peoples experiences with this and how much did baby take when born? Thanks

I honestly don't think you could have too much! So I would fill all the syringes she gave you. My DS ended up on the neonatal unit after my CS and I would have been a much happier wreck if I had a bigger stash as he had to be tube fed and I only had the tiniest amount. I would have loved to have known he was getting the best best before my milk came in.

@googledidnthelp thank you I will just put away as much as I can. It’s conflicting as I see people saying to have as much as possible, then others say just a few syringes. Im not sure how much I should take into the hospital with me?

Honestly take it all, if you need it that's where you'll need it. If you don't need it then it doesn't matter as that's a good thing your baby is doing great.

I ended up with 20 something syringes which I thought at the time was loads. I planned not to breastfeed but would give the syringes then expressed milk and possibly top up with formula sometimes too. I had worked it out as her probably taking 5-7 per feed as that’s what it said on Google so it would get me through the first night if she was feeding every 3 hours. Firstly there was a bit of a muck up with the syringes because I’d taken them on the morning of my section, actually took half and husband brought the rest in at night. Staff put them in the freezer for me and it was meant to be ready when I arrived back in recovery. I got back to recovery with my (very hungry) baby and asked if someone could get the syringes for me please. They didn’t seem to know how to defrost them and had to check a poster on the staff room door. They then discovered they’d need to be put in a machine in the NICU for 25 minutes to defrost. I asked if you couldn’t just hold them to defrost as that’s what I’d read but no one knew so I had to wait the 25 minutes. In the meantime I had to give a little bottle of formula so after all that effort her first feed wasn’t even the colostrum 🙄 Was a bit gutted about that. She ended up rattling through the syringes and took quite a bit of formula too during our time in hospital as I was hand expressing but only able to get one syringe out at each attempt.

@Franxxx

I am getting around 10-15mls per day and I have another 13 days until section. Wow you really would think they would know what to do considering it seems like so many people are harvesting it now. I was surprised the midwife suggested as I had my son 4 years ago and nothing was mentioned then. I’m hoping breastfeeding will go well, but actual breastfeeding didn’t work well for my previous, as was told with my son I couldn’t breastfeed due to medication (which then turned out incorrect as rheumatology said I was fine to breastfeed) but I had already stopped and gave formula! My daughter also had a tongue tie and there wasn’t any encouragement or support. I was only 21 at the time so that was 9 years ago! It’s a bit overwhelming. I only live 20 mins from hospital so my partner can always bring up more if I have a stash and breastfeeding doesn’t go to plan.

@Mummabear21324 youll have loads then! Maybe take in 20 or something then have your husband go home for more that night. I was told not to take too much as they have limited freezer space but no one mentioned anything when I got there.

I started to think maybe it wasn’t that common when they were acting like I was the first person to do it but then I heard another girl arrive and tell them she’d brought some too! It was the lady in charge of the recovery ward as well that didn’t seem to know anything about it, very bizarre. I had my first only a couple of years ago and did try then but got nowhere with it but it wasn’t hardly mentioned then, I think I probably just saw it on here/YouTube and ordered my own syringes.

When I was only getting one syringe out at a time in hospital when I’d been getting much more at home I was starting to think the expressing would probably be a fail but the day after baby was born I put my pump on when I got home and couldn’t believe it when there was quite a bit in it very quickly. Last time I’d tried a pump and literally not a drop even made it into it so I think it does definitely help getting things going for after

Check they've got somewhere to store them before you go to the postnatal ward. In my hospital, they don't have anywhere so my community midwife advised that my partner bought them in day 2 instead.

Hi @Franxxx
hope you dont mind me commenting. How did you find harvesting your colostrum before birth? i want to do exactly what you did, i want to give my baby my colostrum but i don't want to breastfeed, ive not found anyone else who did they. Most gave their colostrum and then breastfeed when baby was here x

Just wanted to add that I think the reason advice may seem confusing/ contradictory is that some woman don’t seem to be able to harvest much at all. So if you were told to aim for 20 syringes but only managed 1.5 syringes, you might feel like you were not getting enough. In reality, as much as you can/ want to collect is great. It seems to be quite a recent thing to do (or at least more popular now than in past generations) and so that goes to show it is a great to have but not a must have.

I am no longer breastfeeding. I used a Hakka for harvesting colostrum, when my baby was born she went on the breast, but then she was ill so had to get taken to the NICU and I wasn’t able to go, so my colostrum that I stored came in handy at that point. I would just use the Hakka as much easier than hand expressing but massage and hand express a little first as it helps increase it. You can then give it to your baby when born. Good luck! X

Hi it was fine! I think it totally depends on your baby as everything said they weren’t meant to take much per feed and yet my baby scoffed all of my syringes and I had to rely on my backup formula bottles to get me through the night. Would you keep collecting colostrum in hospital after baby arrived or just stop after the birth?

I’ve actually ended up expressing now for 3 months and it’s going amazingly well. I’m so surprised 😂 I’ve never once put baby to my boob though, it’s just not something I ever wanted to do. She gets a couple of bottles of formula per day too and I’ve got a big freezer stash so I can stop in the next few weeks and still have enough to give her a couple of bottles of it per days until 5ish months. Definitely think the colostrum harvesting helped!

I did try to harvest colostrum with my first but I think I was so unsure about it that I just couldn’t do it. I’d say once you’ve done a few days, start to use a little cup to collect it in and just hold it under your nipple to catch the drops. You can get it our way faster that way as you don’t have to reposition your hand after each time holding the syringe and stop/starting