Antenatal Expressing of Colostrum - My Experience of Colostrum Harvesting

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

Welcome to my 33 week update on my antenatal colostrum harvesting blog. This week I talk about my expressing diary, factors that I've found to increase my supply of colostrum and investigating how I can donate my colostrum to the local hospital or milk bank.  My Colostrum Harvesting Diary at Week 33 of Pregnancy - Week commencing 2nd February 2021 My last day of expressing was 1st February 2021. I am hand expressing colostrum daily and usually express from one side and when that's empty, switch to the other, then back again etc until both sides are empty and that discomforting feeling of 'needing to express' is gone. Last week I thought my daily supply would drop a little as I've gone from expressing once every other day, to once everyday. However it seems that my body has adjusted quite quickly to the new expressing routine as the overall amount of colostrum for this week is greater than last week. It's also important to note that I am still not exp