MOTHERHOOD & NUTRITION

Colostrum, Your Newborn’s First Meal: Understanding the Original Superfood, Its Benefits, and Importance

Often referred to as liquid gold, Colostrum is essential food for your breastfed newborn.

By Mark Zuleger-Thyss

The ancient Greeks believed the galaxy was formed when Hera removed Heracles from her breast, and her divine milk spilled across the heavens.

Colostrum is the first form of breast milk released by the mammary glands after giving birth. It's nutrient-dense and high in antibodies and antioxidants to build a newborn's immune system.

For some mothers, Colostrum is not on their radar. If she intends to breastfeed, her thoughts are undoubtedly on her later milk. Colostrum is the precursor to breast milk and is stored and expelled in and through the breast.

It's packed with remarkable properties that protect and nourish your baby in the first days of life. Colostrum looks thicker and yellower than mature milk, often light yellow, gold, or sometimes clear in color. Its composition is also different as it is tailored to the specific needs of your newborn baby.

Colostrum is rich in immunologic components such as secretory IgA, lactoferrin, and leukocytes, as well as developmental factors such as the epidermal growth factor. It also contains low lactose concentrations, indicating its primary functions to be immunologic and fortifying rather than nutritional.

Colostrum is the perfect food for a newborn. It is highly concentrated and rich in protein and nutrients. So, even a small amount is enough for your baby's tiny stomach.

Colostrum is also low in fat, easy to digest, and rich in ingredients that ensure the best start to the development. Finally, and more importantly, it plays a crucial role in building a baby's immune system.

Sodium, chloride, and magnesium levels are higher in Colostrum, while potassium and calcium levels are lower than in later milk.

Colostrum is so extraordinary it is even sold in supplement form for adults.

Because milk is the first food for all mammals, it has often been associated with the food of the Gods.

In Hinduism, the Universe was originally a sea of milk, which the Gods churned to create butter.

Colostrum is Ideal for Your Baby

This perfect first food contains essential nutritional components that help prime your baby for a healthy life. It’s a unique substance with properties that no other food has. Even its pH levels encourage the growth of good bacteria.

Colostrum fights Infection

Think of Colostrum as an immune prep. It contains white blood cells, antibodies, and immunoglobulins that prime your infant’s immune system.

One of these components, immunoglobulin A, is an antibody that protects against infection of the throat, lungs, and intestines. Colostrum was once the go-to for immune support before the discovery of penicillin and modern antibiotics.

Up to two-thirds of the cells in the Colostrum are white blood cells, which protect against infection.

The white blood cells in Colostrum produce antibodies that can neutralize bacteria or viruses. These antibodies are particularly effective against stomach aches and diarrhea—essential for young babies with immature intestines.

Now that your infant has left the protection of your womb, he/she must be ready for challenges in this new environment outside your body.

Colostrum clears the Digestive Tract

The first bowel movement your baby has is called meconium, a thick, greenish tar-like substance. While conventional formula tends to constipate an infant, Colostrum helps flush out the digestive tract and expel the meconium. This also helps to prevent jaundice, as the Colostrum flushes out excess bilirubin that causes the condition.

Colostrum helps seal the Baby’s Gut

Babies are born with a permeable gut lining, making them more susceptible to infections and diseases.

Colostrum enters the bloodstream through this lining and plugs these gut holes, allowing breast milk to finish the job later. This process helps prevent food allergies and other leaky gut issues later in life, such as asthma, allergies, ADD, and eczema. 

According to lactation experts, this sealing of the gut is imperative, so your infant should have only Colostrum in those first several days.

Trust in God versus Spiritual Wounding

Children receive more than food from their mothers' breasts, and there is no greater gift a mother can give her child than the gift God has given, which is breastfeeding.

The Bible notes in Psalms 22:9 how an infant learns trust through nursing and having her/his needs met consistently and promptly, the basis for trusting God when he is older.

A baby's spirit can also sense the rejection of not being nursed and can cause spiritual wounding.

Natural Immunization

Since Colostrum begins to seal the gut lining preparing for breast milk and solid foods later, it acts as a natural immunization. This prevents unwanted substances—especially germs—from entering the bloodstream and causing sickness at a time when babies are most vulnerable. 

Regulates Baby’s Bodily Functions

For the previous 9 months before birth, your infant has been in a protective cocoon in your womb, shielded from the outside world. After birth there is an adjustment period wherein their body can fully regulate itself.

Colostrum helps the infant adapt by regulating body temperature, the vascular system, glucose metabolism, and lung function, and helps maintain fluid homeostasis.

This makes early breastfeeding especially important for c-section babies. And when these first feedings are done with skin-to-skin contact, your chest also regulates baby’s body temperature and heartbeat better than in a hospital incubator. 

Colostrum Supports Bowel Function

One fundamental antibody, sIgA (secretory immunoglobulin A), is plentiful. It protects against disease. This sIgA is concentrated in the baby's gastrointestinal and respiratory tract lining, protecting it from diseases the mother already had.

Colostrum is rich in other immunological ingredients and growth factors that promote the development of protective mucous membranes in your baby's intestines. And while that's occurring, the prebiotics in Colostrum feed and build up the “beneficial” bacteria. 

Colostrum Protects against Jaundice

Infants are susceptible to developing jaundice shortly after birth, and Colostrum helps to fight it.

Colostrum has a laxative effect so that your newborn has frequent bowel movements. This allows it to empty its bowel of whatever it ingested in the womb. The result is meconium, dark, sticky stools.

Frequent bowel movements also reduce the risk of neonatal jaundice. For example, your baby is born with a high percentage of red blood cells carrying oxygen around his body. Bilirubin is a byproduct produced by the body during the breaking down of red blood cells. 

If your infant's liver is not developed enough to process bilirubin, it builds up in its body and causes jaundice.

Vitamins and Minerals in Colostrum

Colostrum is the first sole nutritional source for your newborn infant. The vitamin profile of a mother’s Colostrum depends on her own health status influenced by diet and lifestyle. Colostrum is enriched in vitamin A, C, and K compared to maternal blood serum.

The carotenoids and vitamin A in Colostrum give it its characteristic yellow color. Vitamin A is vital for your baby's vision and keeps their skin and immune system healthy.

Infants usually bear low vitamin A reserves and Colostrum makes up for this deficit.

Colostrum is also rich in minerals, such as magnesium, which supports your baby's heart and bones. The copper and zinc found in Colostrum helps develop their immune system.

Zinc also supports brain development, and Colostrum contains almost four times as much zinc as in mature milk to support your baby's rapidly developing brain.

Fourth Chakra Energy and Your Breasts

Breasts are the most basic form and representation of maternal love and nourishment. The breasts and our bodies are dynamic, and bringing balance to your Fourth Chakra is vital.

The Fourth Chakra is about nourishing and caring for ourselves and others. Each chakra supplies life energy to its corresponding organs. When balanced, this energy keeps all the organs of the Fourth Chakra healthy. This includes the heart, lungs, upper spine, shoulders, and breasts.

There are defined emotional patterns that contribute to diseases of the breast that go beyond the genetics of breast cancer.

The Fourth Chakra – also called the Heart Chakra — is your emotional center. Question whether the emotional patterns you are holding on to support you. If instead, they are draining you, this can set the stage for illness in these organs.

Equally, when you recognize these patterns and release them, you lay the groundwork for balanced health.

Other Nutrients in Colostrum

Essential substances in Colostrum stimulate your baby's growth and help their immune system.

Summing Up Colostrum

Support for your Infant's Growth and Development

Colostrum contains other elements that promote your baby's growth and development. Scientists are still trying to figure out what role these play.

And since Colostrum is similar in structure to amniotic fluid (which your baby swallowed and passed in your womb), it is the ideal preparation for life outside the womb.

Within a year, your baby may be walking and learning to speak. You only make Colostrum for a brief time. Still, it makes an invaluable contribution to the baby's first 12 months—and the rest of her/his/its life. 

The word galaxy originally comes from the Greek phrase Galaxias Kyklos, meaning ‘milky circle,’ presumably because of the white light created by the stars at night.

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But, of course, our galaxy is known by another term: the Milky Way.

© 2005 – 2023, Mark Zuleger-Thyss, Garden of Healing, LLC.

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