What is Colostrum and What Happens if You Express Colostrum Before Birth?
Colostrum contains high levels of antibodies, the proteins that not only fight infections but program a baby’s immune system for life.
We don’t know why some women’s breasts start producing colostrum in pregnancy; many women won’t have any until after they give birth.
If women are advised to collect colostrum while still pregnant, they usually “express” these early drops of fluid by stimulating their nipples by hand rather than using a breast pump.
The amount women collect varies from nothing, to a few drops, to a teaspoonful or more.
They collect it in a syringe or small sterile jar, which they store in the freezer at home.
They then bring it (still frozen) to the hospital when they give birth, where it is thawed if needed to give to the newborn baby while he or she is one or two days old.
The most common reason why women consider expressing colostrum early is if they have diabetes in pregnancy, whether that’s existing diabetes or diabetes that only came on while pregnant (pregnancy-onset or gestational diabetes).
Before birth, all babies receive a continuous supply of food in the form of glucose from their mother.
This stops suddenly at birth and as babies transition to life outside the womb they have a period of low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia).
However, this adaptation to outside life takes longer for babies of mothers with diabetes.
About one in four or five of these babies develop hypoglycaemia soon after birth. If untreated, this could cause seizures or brain damage.
To treat hypoglycaemia these babies are often supplemented with infant formula since mothers’ milk does not “come in” for a couple of days after birth.
While breast milk is much better than formula at bringing blood sugar to normal levels, there may not be enough milk in the breast to boost the newborn baby’s blood sugar levels.
So babies of women with diabetes are more likely to be admitted to a special care nursery for treatment.
The most common reason for women considering expressing milk while pregnant is if they have diabetes.
But if the mother has a small supply of breast milk ready to feed the baby — a few milliliters in a syringe or spoon they could avoid this.
If the mother has collected colostrum before birth, the newborn baby may also be less likely to need infant formula, which has a number of risks to the immature gut.
Giving formula based on cow’s milk to newborns may also increase their risk of allergies and developing diabetes themselves.
Other women may want to express milk before giving birth because they had a low milk supply with a previous baby or they know their baby has a medical condition that might make it hard to breastfeed well, like a heart condition.
While there can be short-term benefits to newborn babies from being fed colostrum expressed before birth, no one has studied if there are any longer-term benefits.
There also doesn’t seem to be much difference between the quality of the colostrum expressed before birth and colostrum expressed 24 hours afterwards.
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