colostrum

IPA/kəˈlɒstrəm/
IPA/kəˈlɑːstrəm/

colostrum — noun

1. the thick yellow fluid that a mother's breasts release for roughly two to four d

1.nounC2
Definition

the thick yellow fluid that a mother's breasts release for roughly two to four days right after giving birth, before her regular milk comes in; it is packed with protein and natural substances that help shield a newborn baby from illness.

Example

The midwife told Ayesha that colostrum would protect her newborn from infection.

typical context: midwife or nurse explaining benefits to a new mother

Dairy farmers near the Tunde family's village save colostrum to feed sick calves.

domain extension: colostrum used in animal husbandry as well as human nursing

Common collocations
  • produce colostrum
  • feed colostrum
  • rich in antibodies
  • express colostrum
Synonyms
  • first milk

    everyday equivalent; less technical, often used by parents and midwives

  • beestings

    informal British / dialect term, mainly for cow colostrum used on farms

  • foremilk

    loosely related but not the same; foremilk refers to the thinner milk at the start of any feed, not the fluid before mature milk

Usage Note

Uncountable; rarely pluralised. Often paired with verbs of consumption or delivery (produce, receive, feed, give) rather than countable measure phrases.

Common Mistakes

She produced two colostrums on the first day.
She produced colostrum on the first day.
colostrum is uncountable and has no plural form.

Word family

  • colostral
    adjectiveC2

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

Colostrum is the medical and scientific term for the thick yellow fluid a mother's breasts make in the first few days after birth, before regular milk arrives. First milk is the plain everyday phrase that midwives and parents often use for the same thing in conversation. Beestings is an older British and farming word, used mostly for the same fluid produced by cows and sometimes other livestock, rarely about humans today. Breast milk is the general term for all the milk a mother makes, including the mature white milk that follows the colostrum stage. So colostrum and first milk name the early fluid; breast milk is the umbrella label for milk produced at any stage.

colostrum ↗first milkbeestingsbreast milk ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

Phrases

  • rich in colostrum
  • produce colostrum
  • feed colostrum to a newborn

Etymology

LatinEnglish

Borrowed into English in the mid 1500s from Latin colostrum, the word the Romans used for the first milk after birth. The Latin term itself is of uncertain origin and may go back to an older Indo-European root linked to flow or pouring. English kept the form almost unchanged because the word entered through medical and scholarly writing rather than everyday speech, so it never softened into a more native-looking shape.