Expressing whilst pregnant.

[lovemybubba]

Hi everyone. I'm 38 weeks pregnant and my midwife said its pretty good to start pumping now and storing my colostrum. She said I can pump, freeze it in a milk pot and then when I pump again I can layer it onto the previously frozen colostrum. Is this right? She said she'd done a course on it that same day, but I'm wondering if she may of got some information mixed up.
I wouldn't of thought you could do that. I'm only getting small amounts so it seems a bit pointless keeping very tiny bits at a time in separate containers.

 

[noon_child]

Colostrum often doesn't pump well (it is thick and gets stuck to the sides which is a bit of a waste) so hand expression is usually recommended.

Depending on how much you get you can either store it is a pot or directly in to syringes (1ml or 5ml). I wouldn't say there was much point storing it in bigger amounts than 5ml as baby's tummy won't take more than 5-7ml for the first three days, and that's likely to be when you might need to use it (although obviously there is never a bad time for colostrum), and you don't want to defrost some and then not use it! However if you have reason to think you may need to supplement for longer than those first few days you could store some in 20ml amounts (see link)
(https://www.deeprootsathome.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/14483_597206420322888_1231782810_n.jpg)

Regarding combining milk, this is fine but "Avoid adding warm milk to a container of previously refrigerated or frozen milk – cool the new milk before combining. " says kellymom, so as long as the milk is cold you could layer it on to the frozen amount.

Hope this helps.

 

[lovemybubba]

Thank you for all the information! Really really helpful and answered all of my questions X