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

The La Leche League have been dangerous to babies for a long time.

When struggling with my low milk supply due to PCOS I was advised I must keep going, do not offer formula under any circumstances, low supply isn't really a thing it's just poor management of breast feeding, don't fall into the formula trap! I took domperidone for a month and still couldn't produce enough to feed my baby. When I had improved my supply to roughly half what my baby needed and could combi feed, her latch was so poor due to tongue tie she couldn't get the milk out of the breast and was helplessly sucking on a full breast but still not getting milk. Those sycophants were adamant that I should put baby to the breast every single time she cried and deny her the formula top ups she desperately needed. She would eventually learn to get the milk out whereas if I gave her a bottle she would never learn because we would be enabling her not trying hard enough. Who cares if she starves in the meantime! I ended up pumping and bottle feeding her breast milk. Cue all the preaching that baby can get more milk than a pump, I don't really have a low supply it's just exclusive pumping that makes me think that way. Thats only true if baby's latch is good! If baby can't transfer milk from the breast due to oral issues they will never get anything substantial, nor the same amount as the pump let alone more!

I am not alone. LLL tell women with low supply to starve their babies at the breast for weeks on end, some end up in hospital with failure to thrive because of this dangerous advice. Formula is not poison and combi feeding is valid, babies still get all the protection breast feeding offers them.

The down side of combi feeding is cost, formula is expensive! But when you have low milk supply you have no choice. But LLL have been directly responsible for making formula so expensive as they lobbied for the laws that mean formula brands can't advertise and supermarkets cant include formula in discount schemes because they claimed it would discourage women from breast feeding, when actually all it does is punish those who can't and make it a scary reality that some women can't afford to feed their baby so they resort to dangerous practices like milk sharing from untested donor's on social media and watering down formula to make it last longer.

To bring it back to the argument, LLL didn't just encourage the trans woman to starve the baby at the breast, they encourage many woman to starve their babies at the breast.

The breast feeding support network was fantastic in helping me through my breastfeeding difficulties and supported me to combi feed for 6 months until I just couldn't keep up any more and my supply dried up completely. They also allow whole families to attend not just women so my husband learned all about breastfeeding and how he could help me and support me best. He was the one at home with me helping our tongue tied baby latch when I was totally overwhelmed and the midwives had abandoned us. LLL banned partners from helping or being involved and made them wait outside.

TLDR LLL have been a danger to babies experiencing feeding problems for a long time. If it was left to LLL my breastfeeding journey would have been over at 2/3 weeks and my baby would have been malnourished. The breastfeeding support network is far superior and have the ability to refer into the infant teams in hospitals which is what we needed and their continued support and acceptance of my husband enabled my baby to have breast milk for 6 months because the breast feeding support network offer real support whereas LLL offer militant ideology. I would be quite happy to see LLL be shut down altogether. BFN is more than enough, and better.

From the article Hellebore quoted at 9.54 this morning

Background: Lactation induction in transgender women is a clinical and research priority in the field of breastfeeding medicine

Why the hell is it a priority? Because we’ve fixed all the possible issues which might prevent a mother breastfeeding her baby? Or because mothers providing nutrition and other benefits to their babies is just so unimportant compared to a trans woman’s desires? After all, mothers can always bottle feed so 🤷‍♀️

😡 I do not understand how anyone can support this

Edited to add that while supporting transwomen to breast feed is a priority, apparently ensuring the secretions they produce are safe for babies is not so important???

no. unfortunately it is not.

Groups and organisations have had their standards of safeguarding lowered by this campaign for 'inclusion'. While on the surface, this inclusion sounds wonderful in theory.

However, it defies the very basis that the safeguarding was in place to protect women and girls from. MALE people. Regardless of their philosophical belief about their identity. Then comes in theories such as post modernist theories and gender identity theory and safeguarding standards are lowered. Because apparently a male can be considered a female when they say they are.

Some of us keep asking to see the evidence that a male at any stage in transition has lowered their risk profile (ie. the general group profile) of committing sex and violence related crime below that of the UK male general population. There is none ever forthcoming. But there IS evidence that this risk is not longer at all! And that is the MoJ prison statistics.

We have a situation that groups, including governments have been advised that they have to be seen to be inclusive of people's gender identities (the only commonality of which is based on a person's philosophical belief) and it has created these safeguarding loopholes. That is what so many feminist and women's rights groups are now trying to raise the alarm about - safeguarding! and being told, even just over the past week that we are bigots and haters.

It does feel like an elaborate hoax sometimes.

It’s banned for a different reason as I said the nhs routinely prescribes domperidone so do many other countries for low milk supply it’s perfectly safe for babies. How do think women prescribed this drug feel reading those comments. Stick to the facts.

While I completely disagree with men creating “breast milk” your comment is hurtful thousands of women are safely prescribed domperidone for low milk supply. It is perfectly safe for babies as the amount that passes into milk is negligible.

This is surely all an elaborate hoax. It’s like an episode of Black Mirror.

And don’t let’s forget that male people find watching women feed babies a sexual fantasy as well. Indeed, we have have MNers tell us of male people in the past of joining breastfeeding online groups, making mothers uncomfortable with comments and questions etc. And those mothers, iirc, were asked to leave some groups because they were not accepting of those male people.

reduxx.info/uk-trans-identified-male-who-sparked-backlash-after-using-womens-changing-room-during-teen-swim-meet-engaged-with-erotic-breastfeeding-account/

And Canada.

https://reduxx.info/canada-hiv-positive-trans-identified-male-boasts-of-breastfeeding-infant-with-professional-support/

I am very disappointed and concerned by this. I’ve always been a big supporter of LLL.

This is horrifying.

This is awful, you think it can’t get any worse and then it does. There’s only one reason why a man wants to be in a room full of breastfeeding women

Cow Achievement apparently

https://www.tiktok.com/@nominal.naomi/video/7235719967327456558

Yet, we are being told by posters that this is all child centred and is just for the infant.

There are plenty of more examples out there.

Including the one from a male feeding from their nipple about the 'electric' nipple sensation with an infant latching and how mother's must spend their days in an erotic fantasy while breast feeding.

On some previous threads, some posters have brought up what about women with PCOS and testosterone. Here is a study and some commentary on that issue, although to be fair, we rarely see that argument supporting these male people these days. Maybe the message got through...

https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/16/2/244/649618?login=false

I found a study that looked at the hormone levels in women breastfeeding. A breastfeeding women without PCOS has the following testosterone levels at 4 weeks and 8 weeks of breastfeeding :

Ng/ml
4th wk 0.13
8th wk 0.11

A woman with PCOS (ng/ml)

4th week 0.21
8th week 0.26

The male who fed exclusively for 6 weeks started with 0.205 ng/ml or that could have been 2.56 ng/mol because the data is contradictory. That was with the suppression drug that was not noted to change in dose throughout this period because it was not tested.

HOWEVER that suppression is known to be unreliable so the level of testosterone may have fluctuated during the feeding time. Plus of course, there may have been an interaction with the other drugs.

Here is a doctor's view on this study and male feeding.

https://lascapigliata.com/2018/03/26/analysis-of-study-of-induced-lactation-in-trans-identified-man/

"On presentation, the patient was on a gender-affirming regimen that included spironolactone (a heart medication used in this case as an androgen blocker), estradiol, micronised progesterone and “occasional” clonazepam and zolpidem for panic disorder and insomnia."

"At initial appointment, the patient had gynaecomastia (abnormally enlarged breasts in a man, Tanner stage V) that was likely a side effect of spironolactone and cross-sex hormones he was taking."

"Interestingly, it’s unclear what was the patient’s serum testosterone level, because two markedly different results were given, one in the body of text – 256 ng/dL – and another in the results table 1. – 20.52 ng/dL."

"This is problematic not only because it constitutes a glaring inconsistency within the report, but also because the higher result indicates that the patient had male testosterone levels. Considering that the study reported no further testosterone data, indicating that they didn’t measure his testosterone level at any other point in the study, and that 75% of trans-identified men on spironolactone fail to reach testosterone level in the female range, and those who augment the treatment with estradiol have variable response, there is no reliable evidence that adequate androgen blockade was achieved, even though authors claimed that androgen blockade was an important part of the regimen."

And it goes on.....

Well worth a read

This horrifies me - LLL should be utterly ashamed. I don't think men have the same structures in their breasts to do this.
Let us call it what it is - child abuse.
It's also abuse of breastfeeding Mothers - how dare they remove women's words and break the bond between women and children. This is evil.

This is from the original article

https://archive.is/ekhDf

Anyway

This is a medically trained male paramedic who did this by the way.

There have been numerous threads about this in the past and never once have we been offered any benefit for the infant in all this. Not once.

Quite a few issues in that original article about Buckley.

Here are a few statements:

''To know I could breastfeed my own child and have that experience, I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to know what it was like to be a mum and breastfeed."

and

'I will never know what's it like to menstruate or carry a baby or give birth,' Ms Buckley said.

'But to be told I could have the opportunity to breastfeed, it was something that was nice to be able to experience as a trans woman.'

and

'The first time it came out I just started leaking,' Ms Buckley said. 'Then I pumped and it was a weird feeling having a suction cap suck out milk, but it was exciting.

'I thought, "Oh my God, I am actually producing human milk".'

and

'Apart from the milk he was getting from me he was essentially starving,' Ms Buckley said of the couple's hungry son

'I genuinely believe had I not brought my breast milk into the hospital he could have become very sick with liver and kidney issues from lack of nutrition.'

and

'It was sad. It was frustrating, but as brief as it was, I did get to experience it. I would have preferred to do it a lot longer. But Auden's wellbeing was paramount.'

I am really looking forward to posters telling us just what about this interview is not pointing out that this all about the male. What part of these statements above are about the child.

Even when HCP's pointed out that the baby was starving, it was all about that adult male.

'paramedic Jennifer Buckley was warned by doctors against trying to nourish newborn son Auden from her own chest but she went ahead anyway.'

and

'The controversial practice has been criticised by specialists as experimental and unethical but Ms Buckley believed she had the right to breastfeed her infant.'

and

'Ms Buckley said when doctors at the hospital learnt she was trying to breastfeed Auden they warned Ms Honnery-Buckley it could put her newborn at risk.'

and

'Apart from the milk he was getting from me he was essentially starving,' Ms Buckley said of the couple's hungry son'

Why was the hospital letting an infant ‘starve’? Or did this couple refuse formula and manufacture the need for this male to then ‘rescue’ the newborn by feeding their son? It should be noted the medical team for the baby thought this was not an advisable option. This male did it anyway!

Maybe those posters who support this male feeding secretions to that infant, can also then point out just how that male feeding the newborn, whatever the substance was they were producing was, how are they providing the newborn nutrition if the composition is unknown?

I doubt we will get any answers though.

That this endrocrinologist has spoken at AusPATH about this, and has 'assisted' FIVE other males to do this, I suspect each state in Australia will have some males to have done this already and quite a few more will be aiming for it.
The usual 'only one / two/ a few' rhetoric would be misinformed.

see below:

Dr Naomi Achong, a former president of Australian Professional Association for Trans Health (AusPATH), is the Brisbane endocrinologist who recommended Ms Buckley breastfeed Auden.

It is understood she has helped five other transgender women breastfeed.
Dr Achong spoke on the topic of 'lactation induction in transfemales' at a AusPATH conference last weekend and her talk was one of the most booked events.

I believe that I have since read that there have been more male people assisted. I think I remember nine being mentioned.

Those poor babies being fed strong drugs at the most vulnerable point of their lives. Fucking hell. All to feed their fathers' fantasies. These men should be arrested not enabled. How far does this have to go? Does a baby have to die? God help us all.

There's two different things. Transmen (biologically female) who have given birth and then going on to breastfeed. I don't think anyone has any issue with this, although people may object to using the term chest feeding rather than breastfeeding.

Transwomen who want to breastfeed is what's being talked about here. This is drug induced. I do think this is a very very niche issue (which begs the question why the research someone posted upthread referred to it as a "clinical priority" for breastfeeding research - because of course all the research on females breastfeeding is done and dusted so may as well move on to the males 🙄).

What is very clear, is that this is NEVER about the child. This is never child centred. This is all about the male person's demands being met

Yes. The baby is a prop for the man’s desires (I want to use another word, but there’ll be monitors on this thread). It’s child abuse

What are they putting in the water? So many Men trying to be everything/anything but good men. So fucking depressing 😞.

The patient first expressed the unique desire to breastfeed her expected grandchild at an appointment with her endocrinologist in the spring of 2022. She disclosed that this was a last-minute idea that came to her very close to her daughter's due date. Her primary motivation for inducing lactation was to experience the bond from breastfeeding that she had not been able to experience with her own five children.

Imagine the reaction if a woman (female) said "I'm sad I didn't breastfeed my children, but my daughter is pregnant so I want to breastfeed my grandchild!"

People would rightly ask her what the fuck she was thinking.

Please can someone explain "man-milk" to me as though I'm an idiot. My understanding of "chestfeeeding" was a biological woman who has decided she's now a male yet feeding a baby so the substance being fed is still breast milk.

If it is anything other than that then what on earth is it? 🤢

This may need a content warning, so be warned this link show males talking about the amazing electric charge they get from infants feeding from their nipples amongst other things.

https://www.them.us/story/trans-women-breastfeed

This is an illuminating read and shows insight into the motivations for these male people who seek to do this.

What is very clear, is that this is NEVER about the child. This is never child centred. This is all about the male person's demands being met.

It gets worse. Women who discuss it online in Australia can be told they have broken the law. Because a male centred experience (there is no proven robust study done on these secretions to show they are safe in the long term) must only be celebrated apparently.

Two Australian Women Told They Broke The Law After Criticizing Trans-Identified Male Breastfeeding Child - Reduxx

Apologies I haven’t/can’t read the thread, I’m a survivor of CSA and the male feeding issue is so so disturbing.
but to say you are being VVR