Do think that La Leche League are now a danger to babies?

Am I going insane, or is the person being discussed here...the grandad of this newborn baby??

"Redirecting it from the moral issue - 'should this be done' - to 'It's fine for men to do it How can it be done?' is exactly what they want."

Yes, limiting it to a 'moral issue' has the following results from what I have seen and directly experienced:

Gets professional women removed from their roles a whole lot quicker than stating the blunt facts about the direct harms to the infant.

Makes the discussion centred mainly on the male person and not centred on the infant where the majority of the focus should be - on that infant's welfare.

Leaves people commenting open to being abused for being transphobic, hateful and many other accusations because the discussion has been directed to judgements on morality.

Allows the discussion to cycle around and around on morality issues (as you say) and fails to actually inform people about what is happening and how it directly impacts the infants involved. I have just spent days where another poster decided that they would censure how women spoke about this very topic to the point where they were abusive to others. All because, while they didn't agree with male people feeding infants from their nipples, they were outraged that words were being used in ways they did not agree with. Yet, that poster had fuck all to contribute other than shaming women discussing the issue.

Leads to entire threads being deleted and this then removes much of the evidence stashed in these threads for further reference.

When entire threads are deleted, posts are removed and posters continue to focus on morality and not on all the facts available, this leads to women on Mumsnet no longer feeling comfortable to discuss it at all. This is ends up being a silencing effect.

If people cannot discuss all the issues around a problem, then they and others go away with only partial information. This leads to a weaker position when they might actually be in a position to make decisions and policy on this very topic. Just like the BBC producer who put a gender studies person into a segment requiring an expert on breastfeeding - that producer focused on the morality of the issue.

See my GP wouldn’t prescribe it because of the side effects! MN suggested Fenugreek to increase supply from Holland and Barrett. It was great advice I suddenly turned into a human supersoaker

Re the LLL dangerous advice - I struggled to BF with DD1, I had a huge PPH and lost 3.5 pints of blood. Midwives neglected to tell me that this would affect my supply so I couldn’t understand why she lost so much weight by day 5.

LLL advice was to keep feeding because supply and demand will sort it all out. Nonsense. It didn’t work. Fenugreek and temporary formula top ups did. I ditched the formula top ups after 3 days and successfully breastfed exclusively for another 3 years, but had I not sought extra help my DD would have been in hospital

Women who struggle with milk supply can be prescribed with Domperidone.

YANBU, Marian Tompson is an absolute legend of integrity for resigning and I’m heartbroken that her amazing work to help women and babies has been shat all to, as she’s PERFECTLY put it in her statement, indulge in the fantasies of men.

You clearly missed the words "drug infused liquid from male nipples".

Not sure how.

Entering into a discussion about it being whether or not it's a sufficient supply or source of nutrition allows those who want to direct the discourse as to how to make it a chemical discussion specifically to deflect away from the bare fact that it's to facilitate men who want to make babies suck on their nipples (no doubt publicly) without ending up on a register.

Redirecting it from the moral issue - 'should this be done' - to 'It's fine for men to do it How can it be done?' is exactly what they want.

And dangerous to mothers' mental health.

They probably bought them (surrogates) in the US.

"Not being able to establish a full milk supply is not the reason people have a problem with trans women attempting to breast feed so why is it being bought up as a good reason to object to the practice?"*

Because if a male person never has the body type to be ever able to produce the milk to be able to feed an infant, why has any organisation made this a priority (as one organisation has stated it should be)? But even more importantly, why have medical professionals allowed these male people to not provide enough nutrition to the infants while these infants were supposedly under monitoring and under a medical professionals care, as I have also described above.

There are valid reasons to discuss the lack of production in male people. And your wish to shape the discussion to exclude that lack of production means that people then do not have full information to make their decisions.

And this also goes for the discussion about domperidone. If a woman is prescribed domperidone, are they not being informed of the issues around duration of usage and having the interactions with other drugs discussed. No woman should be shamed for needing assistance that domperidone can give.

However, that should not mean that the issues of male people using that drug and all the other interactions that go with that drug and other drugs that they might be prescribed cannot be discussed and pointed out in posts.

"The reason people object to this is because it is immoral for many reasons other than not having a full milk supply so let's stick to those and leave the supply out of it because it's irrelevant and upsetting."

You, personally, may believe that objections should be only on the moral grounds. However, many people will not agree with you. And those reading will then need to have the full information that we have available to us to understand that there are not just 'moral' objections (which they may not agree with) but direct harms to the infant involved.

"Once you have alienated the women who had troubles breastfeeding themselves with emotive language about starving babies and shown that you're not interested in a factual debate you just want to show that you find trans people disgusting then the stance against it loses a lot of credibility and support, which is desperately needed."

I consider this paragraph is rather contradictory to your stance that this should be presented as being 'immoral'. Can you explain how you would present this issue based on immorality this without conveying any note of disgust about the male people who choose to do this?

How many of the 'factual' posts on this thread have been based on finding 'trans people' disgusting in general?

If you are telling women that we need to have a 'factual' discussion while then saying we cannot discuss all the implications that are known about the issue, isn't this rather contradictory?

By all means criticise poster's for their wording that you find offensive. However, I have seen enough of these discussions to know that your approach, that being to stick to the morality of the topic, gets dismissed all too often by people who fully believe that this is perfectly fine and healthy for the child involved. It also gets many posts deleted by people who feel the discussion is then based on hate.

I really don't believe that your approach of avoiding all discussion about supply and the use of domperidone is at all helpful to explaining why this is an issue.

Apologies @DragonFly98 I didn't mean any comparison with domperidone for women and I don't think there is one. These men will be taking wrong sex hormones in ridiculously large amounts. Do these cross over? How do they interact? What impact do they have on babies? As far as I'm aware domperidone has been extensively tested and only trace elements cross over. It is safe for babies. That isn't true of the drugs these men are taking.

@DragonFly98 I'm glad you found something that worked and helped you feed your baby.

I will request my original post is deleted.

Thank you , domperidone was the difference for me in being able to breastfeed or not as my autoimmune condition affects my supply.

Thanks for posting this

I think it should be discussed in a way that doesn't alienate women who have had anything other than a straight forward breast feeding journey. Not just myself but several women on this thread and other threads have been offended by the use of an insufficient supply being produced as a reason for disagreeing with trans women attempting to breast feed. Myself and others on this thread have been offended by the posters stating domperidone is dangerous, bad for babies, banned by the FDA, babies can't consent to ingesting the drug etc.

I also find it galling that it being said that LLL are encouraging trans women to starve their babies at the breast as a valid argument that it is wrong for trans women to attempt to breast feed when LLL encourage women with low supplies to starve their babies at the breast too.

LLL have been dangerous to babies long before now for those reasons in my opinion this is just another things they are missguided and they will get no support from me.

Not being able to establish a full milk supply is not the reason people have a problem with trans women attempting to breast feed so why is it being bought up as a good reason to object to the practice? The reason people object to this is because it is immoral for many reasons other than not having a full milk supply so let's stick to those and leave the supply out of it because it's irrelevant and upsetting.

A house divided cannot stand. Alienating women using domperidone or struggling with low supply only weakens the united front women should be presenting against this issue. This is the same reason I find the posters calling the fluids produced pus as if they don't know what an infection is irritating. Once you have alienated the women who had troubles breastfeeding themselves with emotive language about starving babies and shown that you're not interested in a factual debate you just want to show that you find trans people disgusting then the stance against it loses a lot of credibility and support, which is desperately needed.

I am against this practice, but it needs to be tackled properly or we won't get anywhere.

There is no benefit to the baby whatsoever. This is child abuse

If ever an example were needed of the narcissism of TIMs it would be this. His daughter is about to give birth and he decides it would be a great idea fro him to feed his grandchild so he can bond with them. Just WOW. Did a doctor indulge this? You don’t have to be trained in psychology to see how it’s just a way to make everything about them. His daughter’s maternal experience doesn’t matter. His grandchild doesn’t matter. It’s all about how things affect him. It’s a hideous, vile, grotesque way of centering yourself in the lives of everyone around you and it’s being encouraged!!

And you’re right about how if a grandmother tried this she rightly be told to stop being ridiculous. Can you imagine the AIBU? “MIL wants to induce lactation to breastfeed my PFB so she can bond. AIBU?” 🤢

@DragonFly98 Apologies, I certainly didn't intend any offence, I obviously didn't read up the drug in enough detail.

I am also a breastfeeding mum who has to take certain essential medication, so I am the last person who would want to cause upset.

I think you will find people are responding to being told that discussing low supply as one of the issues is problematic.

Sadly, the depth of the issue cannot be discussed without discussing the drugs used (at rates higher than women use and for longer for one of the drugs that are seen as part of the issue). And it is important for showing the priorities of the medical staff involved when we point out that under direct medical supervision that at least two male people’s experience had been prioritised above the infant that they were feeding in a way.

That seems to have been the issues that Stable followed on to criticise others for discussing.

Usually the male doing this is the baby's father. This is possible because the vast majority of trans-identifiying males do not have surgery on the genitalia. Of course on this thread we also have the case of a TIM who asked for help so he could 'breastfeed' a newborn grandchild.

In all these cases, it's possible the baby's mother has already made the decision not to breastfeed. I can't help worrying, though, that this decision may have been made under pressure from the male parent nagging away endlessly about what a privilege it's been for the mother to go through pregnancy and birth, how sad the male parent is not to be able to experience these things, how marvellous it would be if the female parent would just step back and let the male parent do the one thing doctors can facilitate, i.e. feed the baby. I can't imagine how browbeaten a woman would have to be to agree to this, but unfortunately we know from many accounts of women whose husbands/partners have come out as trans that the female partner's needs and wants come a long, long way behind the male's. Just one of many reasons why we all know they're not really women.

@Decencydiedtoday it is not fiction. There is an article in the Sunday Times by the woman who resigned after being instructed by Head Office to allow all parents into the session. I think she will know the facts.