Colostrum: 12 Fun Facts About This Miracle Milk
You might already know that colostrum is the first milk you (and all mammals) produce, but did you know that it’s actually alive? Or that it never runs out? Here are twelve cool things about colostrum that you might not have known.
Colostrum is the most condensed essence of your milk
During pregnancy, your milk-making hormones (primarily prolactin) are kept in check by your pregnancy hormones (primarily progesterone), so that you don’t start producing large volumes of milk before your baby is born. Rather, that energy is directed to the baby still in your body. The only milk that can squeak through this hormonal suppression is colostrum: the most condensed, pure, essence of milk. Colostrum is like the bouillon cube of milk. The essential oil of milk. The osmium nugget of uncut milk. Liquid gold: its most pure and precious form.
Colostrum comes before the baby
We start producing colostrum during pregnancy. Some people leak tiny drops of it in the weeks preceding the baby’s arrival, but most people don’t. It might look like honey or cream coloured crystals on your nipples or clothes. Whether you see any during pregnancy or not doesn’t mean anything about your ability to produce it. Most people don’t see colostrum until after the baby is born. There is no need to extract it prior to the birth.
Colostrum comes in tiny amounts
Because colostrum is so condensed, it is produced in teeny, tiny amounts. It is measured in drops, or millilitres. Even though it is miniscule in quantity it is enormous in quality. It has all the vitamins and immunities and benefits of milk without the volume or calories. It is high in energy, but low in fat. And it has several jobs that it has to accomplish before your milk arrives.
Colostrum is all your baby needs until your milk comes in
Despite how little there is (or in some ways that we’ll get to momentarily, because of it), colostrum is all your baby needs before your full milk starts flowing. After the placenta detaches, your progesterone levels start declining, and when they’re low enough, the milk-making hormone prolactin is able to surge, which brings forth your milk. This typically happens anytime between 3 - 7 days after your baby is born. Until then, colostrum is not only all your baby needs, but all they are meant to have. Mammals have evolved this way because they need the colostrum to get them ready to digest your milk. The colostrum is a necessary introduction to the milk. Your baby’s tummy at birth is only the size of a chickpea. So a few drops per feed is all your baby’s tummy can handle.
Colostrum primes the digestive system
Prior to being born, your baby processes waste through the umbilical cord. They don’t poop in the womb (thank goodness). So their digestive tract is linked to the placenta, and all their waste exits through the maternal body. The baby is completely contained within our body, so they don’t have access to intaking resources, nor to eliminating waste. We do the eating, drinking, and breathing for the baby, and we also do the outputting, or eliminating. When the baby is first born, your colostrum bridges this transition. Colostrum gets the baby’s digestive system prepped to consume and process your milk, and to eliminate the waste that this experience creates. Babies are not born equipped to digest anything else yet.
Colostrum is a powerful laxative
In the womb, your baby’s bowels are plugged with meconium, which is a thick, heavy, sticky substance mostly thought of as a baby’s first poop. Your baby needs this stuff to be gone before they can properly use their bowels. Colostrum is a super-strength laxative that helps the baby expel all that dense meconium before they try consuming milk. Otherwise the baby’s digestive system would remain blocked making it difficult for the baby to complete the digestive process. The fact that colostrum comes in teeny, tiny amounts, but acts as a powerful draino-cleanse for the baby–clearing out the path–is necessary so that the milk can move through the baby’s system. Picture the back-up that running water into a clogged sink causes, versus a sink where the drain has been thoroughly cleansed.
Colostrum activates your milk production
Another reason colostrum comes in tiny drops is that the minimal amount causes the baby to suckle vigorously and constantly. Babies use their mouth and jaw differently to prime the breast than they do when volumes of milk are free flowing. It’s like how you would suck more intensely on a straw to clear an obstruction (a stuck boba in bubble tea, perhaps), than how you would drink from a large mug that was pouring into your mouth: the first is very targeted, the second is more passive. There are different parts of your jaw moving. When the baby is intensely pursuing the tiny drops of colostrum, this dynamic jaw motion activates your prolactin receptors, which tell your body to start making milk. The more your baby suckles, the quicker and louder your body gets the message. It’s therefore your baby’s mining of the colostrum that tells your milk to show up.
Colostrum establishes your milk supply
The suckling for colostrum also tells your body how much milk your baby needs. How frequently and vigorously your baby suckles during the colostrum phase is how your mammary glands learn what volume your baby expects. So the more that your baby suckles colostrum, the more attuned to your baby’s size and metabolism your milk volume will be. This is also how our mammary glands know if we’ve had twins or triplets–it’s all in the suckling. This is why feeding the baby some other way (bottle, or previously harvested colostrum) during the early days can create an accidental miscommunication with your own lactation system. Your body is trying to figure out the baby’s size, appetite, and growth needs, and might under-produce if the baby is spending their suckling energy elsewhere. It can prevent the baby from being able to convey important information to your lactation system. Allowing your baby unlimited access to the breast in the early days can lower the risk of milk supply issues throughout your nursing relationship.
Colostrum lowers the risk of jaundice
Another reason to offer the baby unlimited access is that colostrum lowers the risk of jaundice. Newborns have an excess of red blood cells at birth that they need to break down after they’re born. This process creates bilirubin. When newborns have a backlog of bilirubin, it can turn their skin and the whites of their eyes yellow. Mild jaundice is very common, but too much means the baby’s liver is having trouble processing the bilirubin. The best cure is your colostrum. The more of your colostrum the baby ingests, the quicker and more efficiently they evacuate all that bilirubin. The colostrum flushes and cleanses their system.
Colostrum coats the baby’s gut
In the first few days before your milk comes in, your colostrum forms a coating in your baby’s gut, almost like a seal. This creates the foundation for a healthy gut for the child’s entire life. If your baby ingests anything other than your colostrum in the early days, it can cause gaps in the seal, which can increase the risk of gut conditions such as leaky gut syndrome, IBS, Crohn’s disease, as well as diarrhea and gastritis. A good latch, and unlimited access to the breast is the best way to ensure that your baby’s gut gets this colostrum coating treatment.
Colostrum is nature’s first vaccination
Colostrum is sometimes referred to as the baby’s first vaccination because it has such an impact on your baby’s overall and ongoing health. As well as the reasons already listed, colostrum is bursting with immunities and immune factors. But like all stages of your milk, colostrum is made-to-order. It responds to the information that your mammary glands pick up from the baby’s saliva, and it customizes its contents according to your baby’s exact and immediate needs. Before your baby is born, your colostrum is more generic, but as soon as your baby latches, the colostrum starts changing according to your baby’s personal health requirements. Your colostrum is alive! It is a living substance–reactive, dynamic, and unique–that shifts and alters to meet the baby’s specific needs. This is another reason that previously harvested colostrum is not the same, and ranks second place compared to the stuff that baby extracts personally. Your colostrum senses exactly what health factors your baby needs, and supplies them in real time.
Colostrum never runs out
And you never run out of colostrum! When your milk arrives (which typically happens between the third and seventh day after your baby is born) it doesn’t replace your colostrum, but joins it. Your colostrum becomes a teeny tiny fraction of the milk you produce, but remains part of it forever. So if you were concerned you might run out of colostrum before your milk comes in, you won’t. As long as you are lactating, colostrum is always present.
So after your baby is born, you can feel confident that your colostrum is all they need until your milk comes in. The colostrum you produce is exactly the right quantity and quality to meet all your baby’s needs.
Stephanie Ondrack is a retired birth doula (or maybe on an extended sabbatical) and has been with The Childbearing Society since 2003. She lives in East Van with her partner, kids, chickens, and cats.