Colostrum is your body’s First breast milk. The body starts to produce it at about 24 weeks gestation and it is a newborn’s “super-food” It contains concentrated nutrients, antibodies and laxatives to help a newborn’s body adapt to life yet in a very small amount…on purpose!
Your colostrum is ready and waiting for the arrival of your baby and with the very first latch and nuzzle your body delivers this amazing milk to your baby!
The belly capacity of a brand new baby is only 5-7 milliliters, the size of a small marble! Colostrum has the important job of getting sufficient nutrients into your baby while not contributing to the fact that they are born fluid overloaded! That’s how brilliant colostrum is! It starts the baby’s immune system with high levels of antibodies. It stimulates the bowel to get rid of meconium (the first poop) and gives the baby concentrated nutrients.
In appearance, colostrum is yellow, translucent, thick and, again, only a tiny amount. It can be difficult to pump it in the first 2 days and if your baby isn’t latching on inititally you may have better luck expressing it onto a spoon and either feeding that to the baby or pour it into a bottle for storage.
Bottom line, colostrum is brilliant! It provides babies with a potent punch while minimizing the quanity on their new tiny bellies. Babys often swallow a lot of fluid during birth and they simply are not interested in eating large quanities Some babies are even spitting up for the first 24 hours because of all of the gook the swallowed during birth. Colostrum takes all of these issues head on and gives newborns what they need, what the want and not anything to waste!
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