Antenatal Expressing of Colostrum - My Experience of Colostrum Harvesting

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

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

This week I'm writing my colostrum harvesting 34 weeks pregnant entry much later than planned. I've had a very busy couple of weeks where I've been handing over at work to a lovely lady who is covering my maternity leave and also I've been very busy nesting and organising stuff around the house in preparation for baby and generally my own sanity! Overall, everything has been fine. I've been feeling ok; a little tired hear and there obviously, because I'm getting much bigger and it's coming towards the end of my pregnancy, which is a very normal set of feelings to experience.  The colostrum I'm expressing has increased quite a lot in volume which is due to my diet. I've recently been more interested in eating sugary and fatty things like chocolates, hobnob biscuits, slices of bread with Nutella, oat biscuit bars and raiding the sweetie tin frequently!  I've also had a few tired days. One day I wasn't able to express and just wanted to slee

So, I'm 32 weeks pregnant now with my second baby and I've been expressing colostrum roughly every other day since week 27 to relieve breast discomfort and to provide a small stash for my baby which will greatly help with breastfeeding and minimising baby's weight loss in the first few weeks. It's been going really well so far and I've experienced no issues or any signs or pre-term labour, which is a risk for some women.  From this point in my pregnancy, I've decided to express once a day as I'm now a bit closer to my due date and want to gradually start to increase colostrum production, however I must emphasize that I'll be taking a very gradual approach , so as not to induce any signs or symptoms of preterm labour. At week 36, most medical sources online say you can start expressing colostrum 2-3 times a day which is what I plan to do when I reach that stage in my pregnancy. At 32 weeks pregnant, I'll continue to hand express instead of