Pre-birth expressing

This MAY be a silly question but I honestly have no idea.

Can you express colostrum prebirth and freeze it? Will it affect how early your milk comes in??

When dd was born I had a hard time in the first month bfing and while I continued to bf I mix fed from probably 2 weeks old.

It all started as soon as she was born, I was sick in the hours after birth (uncontrollable vomiting) and for the 3 days I was there the midwives expressed for me without showing or letting me try myself. It was horribly invasive on my personal space and deflating to my confidence. They had me do one bf before going home to check she had latched ok and still I was bruised, bleeding and blistered by the time the home midwife visited the next day, she was appalled.

So if I can I would like to express and store even small amounts of colostrum. We live 5 mins from the hospital so dh can bring it in if needed. But does it retain the nutrients and antibodies ok?? Is it worth trying?? Will it keep ok like breastmilk for a few weeks in the freezer??

Thanks.


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Most definately can do this!! I can't see from my phone how far along you are but my lactation consultant said from 35weeks is fine to do so.
We knew our son would be born with a cleft lip and most probably palate and wouldn't be able to breastfeed. So I had a freezer full of syringes of colostrum and took them with us to hossy when in labour!
Did not affect my supply at all and if anything helped my milk come in on day 3 as we kept hand expressing once he was born :-)

Maybe get on to a local LC and have a chat about how best to prepare for this baby?
Have you joined the ABA and/or done the breastfeeding education class?

I agree with planning with a LC. It is possible to express during pregnancy and may well ease your mind with regards to having it there as backup. But definitely talk to a LC, as it's important to get baby at the breast as much as possible, and if not possible for any reason, then you'd still need to express regularly to get your milk in. I'd want to be careful the stock you take with you doesn't replace feeds or expressing, if that makes sense?

Definitely chat to an LC or the aba tho about overcoming any initial feeding issues.

Yes, you can hand express from 35 weeks, but be careful because it can induce labour. So definitely don't overdue it, and stop if you feel those tightenings getting stronger.

By the way, if you are in hospital, the medela symphony breast pumps they have work even for colostrum, and are much much more efficient than hand expressing. They are one of the only pumps for which this is true, usually hand expressing is better with such small volumes. However, I was hand expressing 2-3 mils of colostrum and the medela symphony was getting out THIRTY mils. I think pumping is less invasive than a midwives hands ;). If DD2 were stronger I would have let her suck whatever she wanted from the breast then pumped, but she wasn't strong enough.

So have a think about requesting to use the hospital pump in hospital. kmn shared a paper in here just yesterday about how expressing colostrum on days 1-3 in hospital can increase milk supply dramatically later on.

Sorry this is so jumbled, still waking up.

I had the same question, so thanks for asking it Mummy Duck :-)

Hi girls thanks for your reply I'm only 17 weeks so still very early but it was something I just thought of.

I did have an Aba consultant come to our house after we were home but tbh she said that dd was latching fine as well and other than lecture me about buying bottles I didn't find her helpful. I then did a bf day stay at hospital and it was fantastic!! She showed me different ways to hold dd so I wouldn't get the constant grazing and she started to choke on my let down so she showed me how to manage that. It just seemed those initial weeks were really hard.

I want ds to be to be at the breast as much as possible however if I end up as sore (I cried through each bf) I know I have some on hand and can hand express or I like the idea of the pump (didn't think it would work so well for colostrum) I have a medulla at home so I'll take it with me jic as well.

I'll look into the bfing sessions Pre birth as well. Thanks girls this info has all be great!!!


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