How Much Colostrum to Bring to Hospital?
My midwife gave me the go-ahead to start trying to collect colostrum for when baby girl arrives. This is my second day of hand expressing and I’m surprisingly getting a whole syringe full per day (1ml) which I wasn’t expecting for my first try.
To the mamas who bought their colostrum into hospital with them, how many syringes did you take with you?
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I took everything I'd collected in 2 weeks. And I'm glad I did because my boy was poorly,and got all that nutrition
How did you transfer it into the hospital? My colostrum is currently in the freezer, syringe labeled and inside breastmilk bags. Our hospital is 25 minutes away! Did you use cool bags?
I took it frozen, syringes in the breastmilk bags, and some ice bags xx
With my first I got told to take about 5ml in but I've just recently had my second and just took syringes and expressed whilst in the hospital and gave the colostrum straight to her, then what I had in the freezer I gave her when we got home - I guess it depends how easy it is for you get express the colostrum.
That’s awesome that you can collect that much!
For some unsolicited advice- I would try not to use any collected colostrum when your baby is first born because it’s very important to establish nursing. I think a lot of new moms get stuck in a cycle of needing to use extra milk because they used it in the beginning and didn’t establish a milk supply. If you’re collecting a syringe of milk per day you definitely don’t need any extra! 😊
Remember baby’s tummy is veeeeery small and they don’t need very much at all initially. The nights at the hospital can feel hard because babies typically clusterfeed and that can feel like you don’t have enough milk because baby is acting hungry and fussy but the whole purpose of clusterfeeding is to nurse your baby *very* frequently on breasts that feel “empty” in order to encourage a really healthy milk supply! Also the skin to skin is important for regulating hormones and increasing your supply.
Learn from my mistakes! Lol
But to clarify (because my ridiculously long message missed this point) I think it’s great you’re collecting colostrum! It’s always good to be prepared especially if your baby ended up needing nicu time, etc. I would just focus less on having enough extra milk and just prepare for breastfeeding (if that’s what your goal is!) if you plan to exclusively pump ignore me! lol
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