Hi all lactnetters I would like your collective experience w/ colostrum volumes. I am very curious about this and I may even write this up. Yesterday I worked w/ a teen mom, primip, about 7 hrs pp and she expressed 60 ml using the Ameda Egnell SMB. (That's all we have at my hospital). It was her first expression for a preterm infant. I also worked w/ a couple moms, multips, who could only express a drop or two. Hand expression or pump. Often use RPS, esp. after a c/s birth. In my experience, about 22 yrs working w/ lactating moms, I have never seen more colostrum expressed than that, although Nurses have told me they expressed more. The least amt I've seen was a mom who got virtually nothing for 8 days, then her milk came in. I read an ILCA abstract today (I think about encouraging Hispanics to bf) which said something like 'we explain that there is about 3 tsps (or tbsps) of milk on first day)." 37ml? I think ? With all due respect to that author, that statement or belief never did sit well with me. I know there is a vast range and I'm not really sure if that's the 'average.' It seems my kids got alot. When moms ask me or when I'm instructing on expressing, like for a premie, I'll say that I've seen moms get drops for several days and I've seen moms get ounces right away. If it is a fairly large quantity, it almost always goes down over the next several expressions, and then picks back up. It seems some of these mom have stored alot of col. during pregnancy, and once it's expressed out they have to wait to get more. Well this is my 3rd post for the day, and I need to go to bed, but I would be very interested in all your experiences. Please be specific as much as you can as far as primip vs multip, c/s vs vag birth, age of moms (do teens really get more milk? I think so - often), hand vs mechanical expression, type of pump, name of pump, and if premie what gestation. Please include permission for me to compile the info and use it, of course with no identifying info on the clients. Feel free to share w/ others who could email me w/ their experiences [log in to unmask] Thanks for reading thru all this, Laurie Wheeler RN MN IBCLC RLC _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html