"You Need to Store the ‘Liquid Gold’ Before Birth"... Why Pregnant Women Are Squeezing Their Breasts [Health Talk]

According to The Financial News, videos of pregnant women expressing breast milk several weeks before delivery and freezing it in advance are spreading through Social Networking Service (SNS) platforms.
On the 8th (local time), the New York Post reported that videos are circulating of women close to their due date pressing their breasts by hand to squeeze out small amounts of fluid, then collecting it in syringes and freezing it.
An influencer identified as A, who has 500,000 subscribers, posted a video on her SNS, describing it as "a way to collect nutrient-rich ‘liquid gold’ colostrum that comes out before your milk comes in." She is currently 38 weeks pregnant.
In the video, A presses her breast with her fingers and appears to squeeze her nipple. At one point, she grimaces, suggesting the process is quite painful.
A explained, "I have been repeating this process every day for several weeks before giving birth," adding, "You need to collect colostrum before the baby is born. It is good to feed it to the baby when the baby gets sick after birth."
Colostrum is the breast milk secreted immediately after childbirth and is known to begin forming from the mid‐pregnancy period. It is also rich in immune globulins such as Immunoglobulin A (IgA) and Immunoglobulin G (IgG), and is considered to play a crucial role in building a newborn’s immune system.
The pregnant women in these videos say that preparing colostrum in advance can help if the baby has trouble latching after birth or in case the baby becomes ill. Some mothers also report that collecting colostrum gives them psychological reassurance in the final weeks of pregnancy.
Experts note that colostrum collection itself is not a new practice. It has traditionally been recommended in limited situations, under medical guidance, such as when the mother has diabetes, is scheduled for a cesarean section, or when breastfeeding is expected to be difficult for the baby.
However, as even healthy pregnant women have recently begun collecting and storing colostrum, medical professionals advise against copying the trend indiscriminately.

Family medicine specialist Dr. Miena Mikk Hull stated, "Having a lot of colostrum stored in the freezer does not automatically translate into successful breastfeeding."
She went on to add, "Depending on the case, nipple stimulation before delivery can trigger labor, and there is insufficient evidence that antenatal colostrum collection increases long‐term milk supply."
In addition, frozen breast milk can generally be stored for only about a month, after which its immune factors are destroyed and no longer remain effective.
moon@fnnews.com Moon Young-jin Reporter