Can you express before baby arrives?

I didn't think that was at all possible unless you are already BF.

My understanding is that although you may have a little collostrum now expressing won't make enough of it and your milk won't come in until your hormones are altered after having bubs

Something happens to your hormones once baby arrives (to do with a hormone drop when the placenta is delivered) which sends the signal to your milk to 'come in' and as long as you're still pregnant you can't get that going. I'd highly recommend reading the article on kellymom about how milk production works, it will answer some questions for later on too

You can express some colostrum before baby arrives, but we're only talking tiny amounts (like you often need a syringe to suck it up off the pump), especially if this is bubba # 1. It's not called liquid gold for nothing! You would certainly not get a weeks worth unless, as the others have pointed out, you were already feeding an older child, in which case it's a possibility. I'm in the latter category and intend to express off a bit of colostrum at the very end of my pregnancy, just in case things go pear shaped and I need to have colostrum handy (for example if baby ends up in SCBU/NICU for whatever reason).

Regardless, you need to be feeding baby as often as possible for as long as possible in those first few days to develop the right receptors and things so that you will have a plentiful milk supply, so if you had some spare milk sitting there, there would be a real danger you wouldn't breastfeed as often and therefore you would be stuck with a low supply, which you definitely don't want!

One other thing to note is that prolonged nipple stimulation can induce labour so I'd be very careful doing it before term! The most I've ever heard of a still pregnant mum managing to express before birth is 80mL and it took her ages (she was trying to bring on labour - it worked eventually!).

Ive never heard of that before, I didnt even have colostrum until after my babies were born!

squoggs wrote: The reason I am curious is that I want to avoid the stress of having no milk for up to a few days after the baby arrives, and wondered if I could get the milk going earlier.

This is how the system is designed, and how it works best in 99.9% of situations. AFAIK it is very very rare for a full-term healthy baby to need to be supplemented in any way. It is fine for your milk not to come in for a few days, it is expected that a baby will lose 10% of birthweight after birth.

Unfortunately as much as you want to prepare for every eventuality, childbirth and a newborn gives you very little opportunity. As much as you can be in control of the rest of your life, this is one of those situations where you have to wing it and trust in yourself.

To be honest the idea of expressing before birth just makes me wince - the last thing you want to do is try to force your body to do something it can't and having bruised and sore nipples is not going to help you later.

Yeah Liquid gold alright! I hand expressed for 2 days straight and managed to get 1ml in about an hour...

It's also important after bubs is born to get baby onto your breast as soon as possible to help bring in your milk.

My MW suggested this to me last time i saw her. Because my last baby came at 34 weeks she would like me to start around 31-32 weeks so i will have some ready when bubs arrives and won't need to use formula.

SER wrote: My MW suggested this to me last time i saw her. Because my last baby came at 34 weeks she would like me to start around 31-32 weeks so i will have some ready when bubs arrives and won't need to use formula.

That sounds like weird advice considering nipple stimulation is one of those things that could bring on labour

I hand expressed colostrum as I knew I would be having a c-section, which apparently can affect the milk 'coming in' as the hormonal triggers are delayed. I wasn't able to BF my eldest as I had no idea this could be done (he was a crash section, so I had no idea I wouldnt be giving birth myself!), and my midwife with jae was impressed that I had colostrum at the ready within an hour of the c-sect, I told her I'd been hand expressing and she was happy to hear that I'd found a way to kick-start BFing this time around. Granted I didnt start doing it until around 37 weeks JIC it started something, but it meant I had something there to offer baby as soon as she was born, rather than wait a couple of days for things to start happening 'naturally'

I hand expressed colostrum for a couple of weeks before DS was born, I had gestational diabetes and there was a chance his blood sugars could go really low immediately after birth and we needed something on hand.

I expressed 3 times a day and on really good day I would get 1 mil total for the day. The stimulation can bring on contractions, but I was in the situation where I needed to have an induction, so my MW was keen for me to try anything that could bring the baby on.

Thanks, I was pretty curious as I had never heard of it before, but you pretty much all said what I originally thought. The girl who did this had IVF twins (which I didn't mention) and she is a solo-parent, so there could have been more to it than I thought.

I guess having an on-hand milk supply at the ready would be too good to be true