Colostrum harvesting

For my first I felt super pressured to collect colostrum and it felt like I couldn't have a successful bf journey without doing it. Never succeed at having colostrum, and never succeed at extracting milk. Never liked it and didn't worked for me. Yet I did bf my first almost 2.5 years. I really think that colostrum extraction is overrated and doesn't mean anything. Too much pressure for nothing. Hope it helps make you feel confident that you can bf your baby even without extracting

I never harvested a drop of colostrum for any of my 3 pregnancies. Breastfed all of them immediately after delivery (1 vaginal, 1 emergency C-section, 1 scheduled section) and I ebf all of them.
I never leaked prior to delivery so I never felt the need to harvest anything. I had a natural oversupply with all 3 of my kids though. Colostrum production prior to delivery has no bearing whatsoever on your ability to breastfeed successfully. Whatever you choose to do is totally fine 💙

That's super helpful, thank you 😊. I've not leaked at all either and didn't fancy trying to force it out into a tiny little syringe - doesn't seem natural! Obviously each to their own, but it's reassuring to hear from experienced Mum's that it definitely isn't necessary ♥️

Nopeeee!!! I am 38 weeks now and tbh I never did it with my son… my milk came in day after he was born… we did ok and he gained weight fine… I am not stressing about it 🩷

I am going to try it this time, but I didn't with my first. My first was born with jaundice and wouldn't latch. Breastfeeding her was really difficult, I ended up exclusively pumping every 2 hours and even then, I never made enough milk.
For the record, I DO NOT think colostrum harvesting would change anything whatsoever about that 😅 I just think, IF I can get anything out, it may put my mind more at ease for starting breastfeeding again.
I also seem to be one of the very very few women who's boobs did not grow one bit during pregnancy or breastfeeding. A cups all the way!

You don't need it before birth, your body will produce it when baby comes and the best thing to bring your milk is to feed as often as baby wants. If for any reason you need to be separated after birth or baby needs to be fed from a syringe/tube or whatever then you can hand express after they're born.

The biggest study into antenatal hand expression was in mothers with gestational diabetes. The primary goal of the study was to check that it wasn't causing harm when done from 37 weeks (it wasn't, so that's good news) and the biggest recommendation from the study was that we should not be using antenatal colostrum in place of a feed once baby is born. It's supposed to be a just in case, last ditch effort type thing. But somehow that has got lost a little over time!

It's the DAME trial in Australia and there's lots of podcasts episodes about it if you want to listen.

Different perspective here, but I couldn’t get any colostrum at all with my first. We then had a tricky birth, he couldn’t latch and I spent most of the first three days desperately trying to hand express around the clock, whilst quite unwell in hospital, to fill syringes and feeding cups to get some food in him as my milk hadn’t come in yet either.

We ended up supplementing with formula and feeding with a feeding cup to not dissuade him from future feeding which was incredibly time consuming. Had I harvested colostrum beforehand I wouldn’t have needed to do.

I have managed to express pre-birth this time and having a supply has massively taken the pressure off should the same happen again.