Colostrum harvesting

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I would love any advice on colostrum harvesting in very simple terms please! I’ve googled and tiktoked but I was wondering:

• how do you collect it in a bowl? Like do you lean over and it drips out? Mine doesn’t drip?
• did anyone else find the syringes from the midwife terrible and then didn’t suck anything up? They also didn’t give me lids?
• how many millilitres did you actually use?
• how many did you not use for feeding purposes?

thank you in advance!!!

I didn't do this before giving birth but my eldest was premmie and a nurse helped me collect colostrum just after I gave birth and she sort of collected it in little syringes. It literally was little drops at a time.

To get the colostrum had to sort of 'milk' my breast!

I had a kit from Amazon so can’t comment on the NHS ones, but the kit I had had little cups and I’d kinda catch / scoop it up.

Like @Cotswoldmama I had to “milk” my breasts but I think the recommended way is to be more static.

I’ve been doing it since around week 36 and things I’ve learned:

• you need to be properly relaxed, I noticed that when I’ve been tense it’s not worked as well. Try different times of day.
• don’t skip the gentle kneading bit at the start, 3-4 mins minimum.
• it starts off with a little but increases over time so don’t expect loads the first few times. I think I began collecting less than 0.4ml, but now can get over 1.5ml.

The key thing to remember though that the Breastfeeding Network, my midwife, and NCT have said really clearly is that it doesn’t work for everyone but this isn’t an indication of future ability to breastfeed, so if it doesn’t work for you - don’t stress. It’s just a bonus.

TYSM this is so helpful! Yes I’ve done it three times now and I’ve got about 0.8ml in total. It’s annoying having to freeze 0.2ml and use a syringe for that. I’ll buy the Amazon one now!

Seeing a video of it on an actual boob helped me. This is the one I found useful. I was never able to express into anything, I just expressed and sucked up the drop as it came out. I had to spend time removing the excess air from the syringe, but I found that easiest.

There was a recall of some NHS syringes because people weren’t removing the caps before feeding and there was a choking risk to the babies by having small caps in their mouths. My trust started using syringes with big caps, but some trusts went cap less.

We only used one or two syringes on his second night when he was inconsolable. It didn’t help, and we probably didn’t need any to be honest. Unrelated but I wish I’d been more prepared for second night syndrome - it was awful but it did end! We add some to bottles of expressed milk, and there’s a chance he might need antibiotics so if he does, we’ll give him plenty of colostrum afterwards to help his microbiome. We haven’t used any in baths or anything yet, but might do when I know what’s happening with antibiotics.

Just wanted to share what I did when I was only getting 0.2-0.5ml at a time. If I'm honest I just kept the one syringe in the fridge for that one day, and collected 2-3 times per day into that syringe. Then froze it at the end of the day and started with a new one the next day. Nothing about harvesting colostrum is sterile so I don't see the issue in using the same one. Realistically you're not going to even be able to get 0.2ml out of the syringe because it's sticky and thick and gets stuck in the spouty bit at the top. That's what happened to me anyway in my lesser filled syringes. Maybe I'm totally wrong here but seemed to make more sense. Best of luck!

I didn't manage to get any and got very stressed about it, but after birth was fine. Have a go but don't stress too much about it.