Before your baby arrives
Antenatal expressing, explained plainly
Collecting colostrum by hand in the last weeks of pregnancy, so there is some ready if your baby needs it. It suits some families and not others, and it is not something to begin on your own.
What it is
Colostrum, collected before birth
Colostrum is the first milk your breasts make. It is produced from around the sixteenth week of pregnancy through to the first days after your baby is born, and it is thick, sticky and yellowish rather than white. It carries antibodies and other substances that help protect a newborn. This page explains what antenatal expressing involves, who it can suit and why it starts with your own midwife or doctor.
Antenatal expressing, sometimes called colostrum harvesting, means hand expressing a little of that colostrum during late pregnancy, collecting it in small syringes and freezing it. If your baby needs extra milk in the first hours or days, it is already there.
You may hear very small amounts talked about, and that is normal. Colostrum is made in small volumes by design, so a few millilitres is a result, not a disappointment.
This page is general information. Whether antenatal expressing is right for you is a decision for you and the midwife or doctor caring for your pregnancy, not something to take from a website.
Suggested for some pregnancies, not all
It is usually raised because there is a particular reason to expect a baby will want extra milk early, or that feeding may take longer to establish.
Where it can help
- Gestational diabetes, because babies can have low blood sugar in the hours after birth
- A baby already known to have something that makes feeding harder, such as a cleft palate or some heart conditions
- Previous difficulty with supply, or anything else likely to affect breastfeeding this time
- Any situation where a baby is expected to need extra milk soon after being born
What it is not
- Not essential. Plenty of families never do it and feed perfectly well
- Not a test. How much you collect, or whether you collect anything, predicts nothing about how breastfeeding will go
- Not a replacement for help after the birth, which is where most feeding problems are actually solved
Drawn from Pregnancy, Birth and Baby, the Australian Breastfeeding Association and NSW Health guidance.
Timing and safety
Why nobody should start antenatal expressing unadvised
Australian maternity services generally place antenatal expressing in late pregnancy, commonly from around 36 weeks, and ask that it be discussed first. That is not caution for its own sake.
Stimulating the breast can also stimulate contractions. Pregnancy, Birth and Baby is direct about it: do not express colostrum during pregnancy if you are at risk of premature labour without speaking to your doctor first. If expressing brings on cramping in the uterus, or there is any bleeding, the advice is to stop and contact your maternity unit.
Your own maternity care is also where the practicalities come from. A midwife looking after your pregnancy can confirm whether it suits you, show you how, and give you the syringes and labels the hospital will want.
If you are at risk of premature labour, speak to your doctor before expressing at all. Stop and call your maternity unit if you feel contractions or notice any bleeding.
A good question for an antenatal session
It is one of the things families most often want to talk through before the birth, alongside early labour and what the first fortnight really looks like. A private antenatal class is a sensible place to ask it, because there is time and nobody else in the room.
Most feeding is sorted after the birth
Whatever is or is not in the freezer, the feeding questions that matter tend to arrive once your baby is here and you are tired. That is the point at which an EverNurture midwife can watch a feed at your kitchen table and work out what is going on.
Ask before you start
Talk it through with a midwife
Antenatal expressing is a decision for you and the midwife or doctor caring for your pregnancy. Any of the four EverNurture midwives can talk you through what it involves.