There is evidence that women have more grey matter in their brains. Grey matter contains cell bodies that help our bodies process information in the brain and is located with regions of the brain that are involved with muscle control and sensory perception.

These cognitive attributes are different in males and females. Generally, females show advantages in verbal fluency, perceptual speed, accuracy and fine motor skills, while males outperform females in spatial, working memory and mathematical abilities [2,3].

Biological and genetic differences in combination with environment and culture have resulted in the cognitive differences among men and women. Among biological factors, hormones such as testosterone and estrogen may play some role mediating these differences.

“It’s not that men’s brains age faster — they start adulthood about three years older than women, and that persists throughout life,” said Goyal, who is also an assistant professor of neurology and of neuroscience.

In general, men have approximately 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence than women, and women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence than men.

We have determined the nipple position in males to be approximately 20 cm from the sternal notch and 18 cm from the midclavicular line. The ideal nipple-to-nipple distance is 21 cm. The average areolar diameter is 2.8 cm.

Colostrum is being produced from about 16-22 weeks of pregnancy, although many mothers are not aware that the milk is there since it may not be leaking or easy to express.

Mothers are normally advised to wait until around 36 weeks before starting antenatal expression. Mums who are having multiple births may sometimes start sooner as giving birth earlier is more likely.

When should I start collecting my colostrum? We suggest you may want to start colostrum collection from around 36 weeks of pregnancy. If you find you leak colostrum before this time you may wish to catch it in a 1ml syringe.

When you are coming into hospital bring 3-4 frozen syringes of colostrum with you. Once defrosted, colostrum must be used within 2 hours in hospital or 24 hours if you can store it in a fridge or cool bag with ice packs. Only defrosting small amounts at a time reduces the possibility of wastage.

I always suggest that the women I work with have a go at hand expressing colostrum before the baby comes. For some women, hand expression comes easily, and they manage to fill a 1ml syringe quickly, for others it takes more time to get used to and they might collect about 0.3ml of colostrum over a 12-hour period.