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Welcome to the World Baby Alyssa! My Week 40 Blog on Antenatal Expressing of Colostrum

Welcome to my week 40 blog entry on antenatal expressing of colostrum when I gave birth to my baby girl Alyssa. This entry has taken me about 11 weeks to write but I didn't want to do a half-assed job! Alyssa was born at week 40 plus 3 days, weighing a decent 8lbs 12.5oz. The birth was completely uneventful and I only needed gas and air to push her out. Needless to say, my hubby Steve and I are both very proud of her and amazingly overjoyed 😍 Her 17-month-old toddler brother Logan, still has plenty of adjusting to do but that will come with time and plenty of supervised interaction. We've had the standard medical checks on Alyssa and she's passed them all, so we are very happy. Her blood spot results will take about 3 weeks but the physical tests have been completed: Reflexes and reactions, hearing screening, weight and jaundice. **Update** blood spots all passed - no illnesses. While it's been a busy week adjusting to a new routine and having to go out eve
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Antenatal Colostrum Harvesting at Week 39 of Pregnancy

Welcome to my week 39 blog entry on antenatal expressing of colostrum. As a quick recap, I've been expressing since week 27 of pregnancy and storing colostrum since week 28 to mitigate breast discomfort. The discomfort felt like that full feeling you get when you're full of milk, although it's more concentrated in the centre of the breast like a marble. Following guidance from my midwife and the La Leche League , I have been expressing colostrum antenatally for 12 weeks and I have successfully circumnavigated the risk of pre-term labour.  Please note, however that the amount of colostrum I am expressing is far greater than that which is usually expected for someone just starting out, simply because I've been doing it a lot longer. I have a huge stash of colostrum in my freezer totalling over half a litre, so I know my little baby girl will have a plentiful supply if breast feeding gets off to a rocky start (as it did with my first one!) It has still been challenging loo

Week 38 and Nearing the End of my Antenatal Colostrum Harvesting Journey

Well, this week was an interesting one... Partly because I'm nearing to the end of my colostrum expressing journey but also my toddler and I were both in a car accident (so the picture above seemed most fitting)! Long story short, the person who drove into us on a dual carriageway also hit another vehicle, then they failed to stop. Physically, we are both ok and so is our unborn baby who has been checked out by the midwife however I do appreciate that things could have been very different...  So, guess what this week's blog topic will be about 😅 Not what anyone needs close to their due date or indeed at all! I am however, still pregnant at the time of writing this (39 weeks), so if expressing colostrum from 27 weeks pregnant and having a fairly high speed car accident at 38 weeks doesn't influence when my labour happens, then I think I'm definitely not at risk of the baby 'falling out' or having pre-term labour as some of the antenatal colostrum har

10 Top Tips for Expressing Colostrum Antenatally & My 37 Week Colostrum Harvesting Diary

Well, I'm 37 weeks' pregnant now and I've been expressing colostrum for a grand total of 10 weeks! I'm so pleased I continued to express and store my liquid gold for little one and I've not experienced any signs or symptoms of preterm labour in my low risk pregnancy. Perhaps I'm proving the doubters wrong... In any case, I'm not expressing to prove a point, rather I did it initially to relieve breast discomfort which I associated with the need to express colostrum antenatally. Storing it and having a stash was just a bonus but I hardly imagined I'd have as much as I have today... To date, I have expressed over 426ml of colostrum. So for this week's blog, I thought it'd be appropriate to provide you with my top 10 tips on expressing colostrum antenatally. Top 10 Tips on Antenatal Expressing of Colostrum 1. Always, always, always discuss with your midwife first  - As soon as you've reached the third trimester you can technically sta