Antenatal Expressing of Colostrum - My Experience of Colostrum Harvesting

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...

Welcome to my 31 week blog on expressing colostrum during pregnancy. So instead of writing loads, this week I decided to do a summary video of my thoughts and experiences from when I started expressing colostrum at week 27 of pregnancy  to date.  In the video I don't talk about techniques for expressing colostrum, colostrum FAQs or top tips etc as there's lots of other very informative videos already online, so no need to cover it off again! You can watch my video on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/6Qt3hH-BZ1U My Colostrum Harvesting Diary at Week 31 of Pregnancy - Week commencing 19th January 2021 My last day of expressing was 17th January 2021.  19th January  - Hand expressed 5.7ml of colostrum. About 10mins per side in the evening. 20th & 21st January  - I did not feel the need to express. 22nd January  - Hand expressed 7.4ml of colostrum. About 10mins per side. This evening, I had a short 5 min break between 2x expressing sessions, both 5 mins each. ...

My Colostrum Harvesting Diary at Week 30 of Pregnancy - Week commencing 12th January 2021 My last day of expressing was 10th January 2021.  12th January  - I did not feel the need to express. 13th January  - Hand expressed 6ml of colostrum in the evening. About 10mins each side. I did feel as though I could have expressed a little more but I did not as I only wanted to relieve the discomfort, not to stock up. 14th January  - I did not feel the need to express. 15th January  - Hand expressed 2.5ml of colostrum in the evening. About 5 mins per side. 16th January  - Hand expressed 6.4ml of colostrum in the evening. About 10 mins per side. I had eaten alot over the past two days - snacking on chocolates and oaty cereal bars mostly which is why I think I've expressed so much in one go 😂 17th January  - Hand expressed 6.4ml of colostrum again this evening at about 10mins per side.  18th January  - I did not feel the need to express. To...

Well, it's week 29 of my pregnancy and I've been harvesting colostrum to relieve breast discomfort for about 2 weeks. I feel the rate of antenatal expressing of colostrum has been more stable this week as I have mostly expressed every other day. This is due to getting over eating so much at Christmas! I also talk about some of the physical changes I've started to experience when hand expressing colostrum - but these are all normal for me as I have experienced them with my first pregnancy when I did not need to express colostrum before birth. After conducting what feels like a tonne of not very satisfactory online research in previous weeks, talking to my local midwives and breastfeeding experts (including other mums!) on forums, I feel a lot more confident in my decision to continue to hand express as and when I need at this stage in my pregnancy. And yes, this week's main image 'believe in yourself' may seem a bit cliché, however that is how I am fe...