How To Collect Colostrum
In my last blog, I covered all about what colostrum is and the risks and the benefits of collecting colostrum before your baby is here (you can catch up here, in case you missed it!). So now that you know all about it, let’s talk through how to express colostrum, as well as a few things that I like having on hand and/or actually need in order to do it successfully.
HOW MUCH should YOU COLLECT?
One of the first (and in my opinion most important) things to remember when collecting colostrum is remembering that we’re all different and that there isn’t a “certain amount” we need to collect. We will all be producing different amounts, and it can vary from session to session as well. You may have a really good session, you may have one where you barely get a drop. Each of those is very normal.
It’s also important to remember that we likely are not going to be producing large amounts of colostrum. Our body typically produces colostrum in smaller amounts because our baby is teeny tiny and when they are born, their belly is teeny tiny too— it doesn’t take much to fill that belly up! It’s very typical to get between a couple of drops during a session up to 1-5 mLs. Some women will produce less, and some more!
WHAT DO YOU need TO COLLECT COLOSTRUM?
Taking that into consideration, there are two things that are necessary to collect colostrum. One of them is free, but the other, you may need to purchase. One is our hand, number two is some type of storage and collection chamber. I would recommend starting out with syringes. If you’re somebody who is just starting to collect and you notice yourself producing tons of colostrum, you can upgrade to something different, but it’s much easier to store colostrum in syringes and administer colostrum to your baby with a syringe versus a bottle or anything else. Colostrum is also very thick and sticky, which can make it easily stick to the sides of bottles/in pump membranes or valves. Syringes make life so much easier when handling colostrum!
HAND expression + SYRINGES
There are two common types of syringes that pregnant women will use to collect colostrum. They are different, but serve the same purpose and are amazing in their own ways. There is the medical grade syringe which you can typically get in bulk. These can hold 1mL, but some larger ones also can hold 5mL. I love these because they come with caps, which is essential in helping the colostrum you collect stay sterile for baby! They also have a narrow tip which makes it easier to collect directly from the nipple, or from a medicine cup. It’s also easier to put a narrow tip syringe in the corner of your baby’s mouth and administer to them . The medical grade syringe can take a little bit more “getting used to”, because you have to maneuver the syringe plunger, hold the syringe in place, and hold the breast. Just takes some trial and error/practice!
There is also the Haakaa syringe–a silicone, squeezable syringe, that holds 4 mL. I prefer the functionality of this syringe (it’s pretty easy to use!). I love that it’s silicone and that it comes with a cap already on it. It makes it much easier too if you’re expressing straight from the breast you can squeeze this syringe and suction off a drip directly from your nipple. You can also actually take the little cap off and express directly into the syringe as a “collection chamber”. The haakaa syringe takes the cake for being the easiest to use because if you get a drip on the tip of your nipple, you just have to take it and squeeze it so it creates suction, place it up to your nipple where that drip is, and release it. It pulls the colostrum down into the collection chamber.
Some people prefer to directly express into a small medicine cup first, instead of suctioning drops off the nipple. The Haakaa syringe would be the best option for this so you can collect directly into the chamber. You just take the cap off and squeeze the syringe to directly express right into the collection chamber, put the cap on, and you’re done!
Something important to note about the haakaa syringe— if you’re like me or you’re first starting out, it’s typical to maybe express a couple drops per session the first few times. That amount looks a little bit more disappointing in a 4-5 mL syringe versus the 1 mL syringe. In a 1 mL syringe, a few drops could equal .3 mL and motivates you when you feel like you’re making some progress. I personally keep both on hand and use the medical grade syringes in the beginning when I am only getting a few drops at a time, then transition to the Haakaa syringe if and when I start to express some more.
COLLECTION CUPS
If you’d rather express into something and pull that up with a syringe, this may be a nice option—Silverettes! These are awesome to express into, not only because the drops will roll down into the center, but it's also a smaller dish, so less surface area for those drops to stick to.
A medicine cup, bottle cap, or something like that will work the same way. You can express your colostrum into that and suction it up with your syringe.
If you are somebody who is profusely, consistently leaking colostrum it may be beneficial to put a breast shell in your bra to collect some of that leaking colostrum and suction up into your syringe. You could also buy 5mL hospital grade syringes if getting out a larger volume of colostrum. Another option is something like the Elvie Curve (which sits in your bra and actually uses suction) or the Haakaa Ladybugs, to collect your colostrum. I would not leave these in your bra for long periods of time, just maybe two short periods throughout the day to collect.
MANUAL HAND PUMPS
Manual hand pumps can also be used to collect colostrum. However, it’s important to note that this can be a bit more difficult than hand expression— ESPECIALLY if you’re only making small amounts. Why? Because it’s very very easy for that thick, sticky colostrum to become “stuck” in the valve/membrane and smaller areas within the pump. This makes it much harder to extract. This option might be nice if you’re someone who is making larger amounts of colostrum (as it can flow through the pump a tad more easily), but my preference is typically hand expression for most!
You can shop my full collecting colostrum Amazon Storefront here.
GETTING set up
I know that this can seem so daunting for so many people. We've become so accustomed to the ease and simplicity of things like the electric pump, so it can feel like you're milking yourself when hand expressing. I know a lot of people have some hesitation, but hand expression is the most effective way to actually compress the milk ducts and push some of that thick colostrum out. Please remember that amounts are going to vary session to session. There is a learning curve with hand expression, and it takes some time to get used to. It's all about consistency and doing the best that you can with what you have.
1. PREPARE YOUR SUPPLIES
The first thing you need to do is prepare your supplies. Decide how you want to collect first! Do you want to try to express a drop onto your nipple and directly suction that off with a syringe? If so, what are you going to need for that? You need your hand and you need a syringe. If you want to do the other option of expressing direct into something– are you direct expressing into your syringe, like the Haakaa syringe, or do you need a medicine cup or Silverette? Whatever you need supplies wise, make sure you have it all gathered before sitting down to start.
2. PICK A PLACE
Next you need to pick a quiet, relaxing place. You're not going to do this at your kitchen table where your kids are running around and you’re stressed out, your body’s tense, you’re sitting in a position where you’re not relaxed and able to just take some deep breaths in. You want to be thinking about what you’re doing, rather than what’s going on around you. Finding a place to be able to do this and be relaxed is important for successfully collecting colostrum.
3. WASH YOUR HANDS
You want to wash our hands ahead of time. Make sure our hands are nice and clean before starting.
4. GET IN THE RIGHT MINDSET
Think of the first few times as practice. You've likely never done this before, so it can feel a little uneasy, unfamiliar, and like you're figuring things out as you go. It's important to go into this with lower expectations than what you've seen on social media where people squeeze down on their breasts and they are spraying or pouring out colostrum.That’s not always how it is. Colostrum is different. It’s very thick and sticky, and it's very hard to extract. It's important to remember that if you get a drop, three drops, or a bunch of drops, it’s worth celebrating every drop no matter what! You are not focusing on the amount that you're getting out, you're focusing on how you're going about it, things that you need to change for the next session, how to get more comfortable with it, and consistency.
STEPS TO collecting colostrum
1. WAKE UP THE BREAST
Once you’re all comfy and cozy, you are going to get your first breast ready and do something I call “waking up the breast.” You're waking up the nerve endings and milk ducts in your breast. You do this with a very gentle touch– either just swiping from the base, starting from the chest wall towards the nipple, multiple times in your different quadrants. You can also do it with a tapping motion, but just very lightweight. This is not a hard, deep massage. Some people will use their fist and just gently roll towards the nipple.
2. HAND POSITIONING
Next you’re going to make a C-shape with your hand, then flip it over. You want your thumb to kind of land two to three finger widths above the nipple and other fingers to fall below. You're going be working around the breast in quadrants. So to start off, you can either do the simple method of squeezing down slightly. This should not hurt. This is not a deep squeeze. You are just squeezing down where there’s enough pressure and do this repeatedly. We do not want this to be painful at all.
The other method you could do instead, which is what I actually prefer, is actually compressing back towards the chest wall and then down together and releasing— gently push back, squeeze down, release, repeat.
3. COLLECT THE COLOSTRUM
Let's say you get a drop. Now you grab your syringe with your other hand, place it right next to the drop, and squeeze down on your haakaa syringe to suction the drop directly off the nipple. Give it time to roll down into the collection chamber. I always keep it sitting up right to give it time to roll down (as this happens slowly).
4. ROTATE QUADRANTS
You can continue here a few more times, then shift quadrants of the breast. What this means is you're keeping that C-shape, but you're moving the location of it. You will do this a few times, to see if you can get another drop, and then you can either continue there if you feel like there is some more or you can shift quadrants again. You will just rotate around the breast and then move to the other breast.
Most sessions will take 20 minutes, sometimes 30 minutes, just depending. Remember, you're not going off of the amount that is in the syringe. You can do this one to two times a day, whatever you’re comfortable with and can be consistent with.
If you are approved to start collecting from let's say 37 weeks on, and you deliver your baby at 39 weeks, that's two weeks that you were able to express and harvest some drops of colostrum. Which can make multiple syringes if you're consistent with doing it once or twice a day.
COLOSTRUM storage
As far as storage of colostrum, technically colostrum is milk, so you follow the same CDC guidelines, the same ABM protocol as we do with “mature milk”. After expressing, we want to place in the fridge (up to 4 days) then the freezer before baby’s arrival. I do think it's best practice to go off of “the sooner the better” for usage. Maybe those can be closer to our maximums, but the sooner that we can get it from the fridge to the freezer the better. The sooner we can get it to our baby, the better.
I typically go off of 24 hours to 2 days in the fridge before freezing that syringe. So sometimes I'll collect and if I get a good amount over 24 hours in my two sessions, then I will just put the label on it, date it, and stick it in the freezer. If I'm only getting like .1 mL and in the next session I get .2 mL, and I’ve barely got anything in this little syringe, I might extend it another day to see if I can get even a little bit more before freezing it. With that being said, if you are using a syringe over the course of two days, like I tend to do, make sure you are placing a label on your syringe before you put it in the freezer with the oldest date of the milk in here. So the first day that you collected colostrum that went in here, that’s the date that’s going to go on your syringe, on the label. This way, we know the oldest date of the colostrum collected in the syringe. (Here are two of my favorite labels to use: Blank Freezer Labels | Freezer Labels With Date Spaces).
I don’t like to throw loose labeled syringes in my freezer full of liquid gold. They can get lost. They can get tousled all around and forgotten. I really like this container, it actually comes with your Haakaa syringes, and you can place your syringes in here with all the labels on them and collect them in one place in the freezer. Some people like to do a tupperware container. Some people do a ziplock bag. It makes it so much easier keeping them all together, especially when it comes time to pack for the hospital.
TAKING YOUR COLOSTRUM TO THE hospital
I would absolutely call your hospital in advance, because each hospital has different storage available and protocols. Make sure that there’s an area for you to store your collected colostrum when you would bring it in if you were in labor or being induced. That will give you a lot more confidence to know what you’re doing ahead of time.
The other thing is, I would not personally bring your entire stash of colostrum up to the hospital. You’re only going to be there for X amount of days, depending on the mode of delivery and what’s going on with you and baby. In the chance that there’s just a refrigerator, and your colostrum is sitting in the fridge, it’s going to need to be utilized while you’re there (within 24 hours of thawing). You may not need all of it, then you don’t want it all going to waste. I only bring a couple syringes to the hospital. We know that those first few days of life, the baby’s tummy is so so tiny, and we’re trying to work through getting a latch down or starting to pump. With the risk that our hospital may only have a refrigerator, we would have to use that colostrum while we are there, otherwise it needs to be discarded. We can’t refreeze colostrum just like we can’t refreeze already thawed breast milk. Knowing that, I wouldn't bring my whole stash to the hospital. If you’re consistently utilizing it, you can always have a family member or a partner go to your house where your colostrum is frozen, and bring up more syringes for you to utilize if needed.
WHAT HAPPENS IF I don’t use it?
Since we know that colostrum follows the same storage guidelines as regular breastmilk, technically it’s good in the freezer for 6 months, but again, I would say the sooner the better probably. If you can use it within those first three months in some capacity, I think that's awesome. Even if you end up giving your baby a little immune boost after a nursing session once in a while. You could save it for if your baby gets sick or a potential “sicker season” like fall and winter, as long as it’s falling within the guidelines.
To be completely honest, even as an exclusive nursing mom, I found ways to get the colostrum to my babies. Whether it be through adding a syringe to bottles as a little immune boost, or even after my milk supply was established and my mature milk was in. Sometimes I would squirt a little bit of my colostrum from the syringe onto my breast, and then latch my baby and have them start nursing. Then I would squirt the rest into their mouth slowly during the nursing session so they’re still getting some colostrum that way. Sometimes I would mix it with his vitamin D drops that I was giving him and getting it to them that way. There were so many ways that I have found that I was able to still get it to my babies.
I hope that within all that information, you feel a little bit more confident and prepared, or a little bit more knowledgeable about how to collect your colostrum. You’ve got this, mama!
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