In my expreiences in early breastfeeding int hospital births, lots of mothers
say "I have no milk" and then I say "let me show you how to see that you
actually do have milk", and we express some colostrum by hand expression, (and
she learns how to hand express at the same time), but it doesn't always
work......
I have seen some mothers in whom colostrum was not expressable at first, but
then we put baby on, and we work on positioning and good latch, and by one or
two  subsequent feeds, there are swallows with a feed and colostrum is
expressable.
I think that the colostrum in some mothers has almost dried, and needs the
warm gentle massage and soak that the mouth does as baby begins to breastfeed.
If the baby is needing the colostrum, the following feeds will be closely
spaced, as baby's hunger and desire to feed comes into play.
Mom's wonderful colostrum hydrates these babies, but it takes:
1. Making sure mom is well hydrated
2. Helping mom to latch baby
3. Keeping mom and baby together
4.  Patience, patience, patience
Fritzi Drosten, RN ICBLC
Piedmont, CA