Colostrum collecting questions!

[Yellowdaff25]

Hi all, I’m almost 37 weeks and been attempting to harvest colostrum for the last few days. Just wondering how long can the colostrum be kept in the syringe in the fridge before freezing?

Google is giving anywhere from 24 hours to 5 days! 24 hours would be frustrating as I’m only managing to collect a few drops at each attempt so I’m just using the same syringe then popping it back in the fridge until it’s fuller then freezing. Otherwise I would just have loads of syringes with only a couple of blobs in🫣

You don’t need much and when you want to use it you can defrost however many and use them as one syringe anyway. I can’t remember what I did but I’d probably be ok with a few days at least. You don’t want loads in a syringe because 5mls is probably plenty for a feed in those first few days and you might only need to be topping up rather than a full feed

You want to avoid mixing different temperature colostrum or breastmilk, so that the freshly expressed (body temp warm) stuff doesn't begin to warm the already chilled stuff!

I'd just shove it all in the freezer as soon as expressed, they really don't need much to begin with. Initially I had lots of syringes with 0.2ml blobs or so, but this increased the more I tried and the more used to expressing I got.

Good luck

What size are your syringes? You can get 1ml syringes?

I know it's against guidelines to add fresh breast milk to a container containing fridged breast milk but I used to do this all the time so I got a full freezer bag to put in the freezer. But then I suppose I was putting it straight in the freezer after so it's not like the fresh milk had much time to warm the old milk up. Anyway, baby never got ill, did this from birth to 6 months before I switched to formula.

If it was me I would probably be comfortable collecting over a couple of sessions then freezing.

Think about it this way. There will be less bacteria growth in a fridge at 3deg vs 6deg. Then there will be less bacteria growth if the colostrum is used within a month after freezing, as opposed to 6 months after freezing. So it really depends on the conditions you're storing it in. If you wash your hands well before collecting and you have a really cold fridge and you're going to use it withing a month of the baby being born then it's probably fine to express over 2 or 3 sessions storing in the fridge in between. If you don't wash your hands, and your fridge isn't that cold and you leave it in there for 6 months then not so much (although it probably still would be fine to be honest).

My midwife told me the rule is 6/6/6 so it can be kept at room temp for 6 hours, kept in the fridge for 6 days and in the freezer for 6 months so that’s what I’ve been doing.
I had planned to add the what I had in the fridge but I’m not consistent enough with harvesting so they’ve just ended up in the freezer anyway.
I’m only getting about 0.1ml at a time but the more consistent you are, the more you get apparently

I'd probably only do 24 hours. And honestly don't worry too much about how much you get, even practicing hand expressing is good. Everyone I know forgot it when they went to hospital anyway! i never got much out, and breastfeeding went fine.

I am convinced (obviously with no evidence) that colostrum collection is just another stick to beat women with-another way to make us feel shit about ourselves for no reason. Prepared to be proved wrong of course…

Totally. This is the first time it's come up on here without the focus being someone really upset and stressed they can't produce any and feeling like they've failed already and that they will never be able to breastfeed. I also think it causes far more stress than benefit.