Banned from breastfeeding group for objecting to males breastfeeding

@AnotherNC22 do not feel guilt. If anyone on another thread does that to you they are a nasty piece of work. You did your best.

I think if you haven't experienced issues breastfeeding, it's hard to understand the absolute desperation to try everything to make it work. Especially when all the hormones are going wild, sleep deprivation is at its highest and logical thinking is very far down the list of priorities. For me, I'd needed fertility treatment to get pregnant, then DC had a NICU stay and then I couldn't bf like everyone else in my NCT group. The feeling of just absolute failure at basic tenants of womanhood, plus the desire to give DC to very best start to compensate for everything that had happened meant that my logical pre birth thinking of "well of course if bf doesn't work, I'll just give formula" went totally out of the window and you get sucked into months of triple feeding, and 10x per day pumping schedules and then domperidone. For context, that's actually where I drew the line and decided not to take it, but just to move to combi feeding - but I still feel a lot of guilt for doing so then when on other threads, you get slated for giving baby UPFs from newborn when you give formula.

This. It genuinely makes me feel ill to think of these fetishistic men getting their rocks off while ‘feed in’ drug induced moob juice. I’d have to give them a piece of my mind before leaving.

But if the majority of members left the old group to support the new group, it would send a very strong message.

I really don’t think men should be breastfeeding at all. What is the benefit to the baby?

I try to give a balanced view on trans threads but dear god this is bonkers.

If this had been my experience I'd be shouting from the roof tops.
There is no way his partner needs him at the breast feeding group. That is controlling behaviour or fettish. Bloody disgusting. They can go to their GP together if they need help.
If he turns up elsewhere I'd be reporting him to the police for voyerism.

No no no. this surely can't be happening! Is this real?
This is all shades of wrong😮🤑

I'm failing to see the problem, she's there with a baby and she's breast feeding. That's what breastfeeding groups should be for. Where the hell does she go for support, there's not going to be a hell alot of trans breastfeeding Mums around to form a group. Good for the group leader being inclusive I would happily've had her in my breastfeeding group.

With every comment you make you reveal that you have no knowledge of breastfeeding services in the Uk or of breastfeeding. Your argument only works if you mangle language and in the UK we don’t have to do that any more.

Breastfeeding groups exist for support with technical aspects and the heavy physical burden of the work. The expertise is on female anatomy so a male will disrupt the group and take up disproportionate amounts of time and so women in the group will be neglected as a result. This could negatively impact on the other feeding dyads and ability of those women to feed if they don’t get the help they need.

I think it’s selfish for a male to attend a group knowing this. In the UK it’s possible to get individual house visits or one to one coaching - why hasn’t this man done that?

Why put their needs over that of the other women and their own baby?

Mothers don’t have penises. Mothers are female.

OK, so that person wants to feed a newborn milk produced artificially with drugs. That is not on the benefit of the baby is it? That group is very damage with that approach.

I do wonder about our medical research community and how this got past the ethics tests. Just because you CAN doesn’t meet you SHOULD. If mice were involved it would have had to jump through so many hoops to get approval.

Also the irony of medics supplying this drugs experimentally when I recall being pregnant there was a lot of pills I could take because the research wasn’t there on the effects on pregnant women and their babies. The caution was understandable post thalidomide scandal. But when a transwoman asks, it is here have all the drugs and stuff the consequences to the baby who is also ingesting them. Where is the safeguarding?

The fact that there is a safe and well tested and regulated alternative to breast milk (formula) that does not require large amounts of drugs to be taken and passed on to the baby demonstrates that this is all about affirming the trans parent and nothing about the wellbeing of the child. I find it repugnant and couldn't get past that in a breastfeeding space. In fact, I'd find that much more difficult to witness (cos playing his femaleness) than getting my boobs out in front of a man.

We should be lobbying Wes Streeting to commission proper studies into the impact of TIM "breastfeeding" and / or restrict the prescription of these drugs to TIMs.

My experience of this was I had low supply and was just desperate to make it work. I kept being told that if I just pumped more, did more skin to skin, ate more etc I’d be able to feed. I had some milk coming out but just not enough and I really loved having that closeness with my baby, plus there’s all the hype about it being best for baby. It felt like I was close to making it work but it was just out of reach and I was very desperate so I googled everything and learned about domperidone, checked it was safe etc. I think it’s quite hard to give up on breastfeeding once you start. As it turned out the domperidone didn’t work and just gave me diarrhoea. Not being able to do something for your baby that you see other mothers doing is really heartbreaking.
I do think the benefits of breastfeeding are massively over inflated. Anecdotally I was the only one of my siblings not breastfed and I’m the only one who has a normal bmi, no allergies and went to uni. My siblings are all morbidly obese, have hayfever and struggled academically. Go figure! However, I still think of you can breastfeed it’s an amazing thing to do. I was far more sensible with my second DD and accepted my limitations. I still feel a little sad though every time I see a mum breastfeeding.

Meet together with like minded women in the same boat for cup of tea meetings and to support each other with breast feeding in an informal way.
You need tp have a support network; breast feeding is natural but it doesn't always come naturally.

Does no one else bring their partners?

When I went to these groups there were a lot of men there.

I personally completely disagree with men being allowed at these sessions for the same reasons as you.

Perhaps they could put on a couple extra sessions for the men or even female partners to me included but like you say these should be safe spaces for the pregnant/BF women to open up.

I also disagree with men being allowed to stay overnight on maternity wings.

However, is this group just for mothers or can people bring their partners?

It actually sounds like this is a group where partners (and therefore men) are allowed which means you have no right to not want this one man there for the reason you state, if other men are there too.

If it is a group where no partners/men are allowed then I would absolutely complain about this person having different rules.

But you cannot complain about a male being there if it’s not a female only space.

I actually think if you’re honest with yourself it’s probably more to do with them being trans and a biological man wanting to BF (which I understand).

It’s a difficult one because you are wanting to exclude this one man, even though it seems men are welcome to attend the group as well.

I would not be ok with it but then I’d also not be ok with the others bringing their male partners either.

At the end of the day, they are trying to make sure their baby gets the food and nutrients it needs like the rest of you.

I personally don’t think a man needs to BF but your argument is that you want a female only space to talk about intimate things, but it’s not a female only group because partners are allowed.

If it was a female only space and this person wanted to attend, then it would be an issue and a very challenging one to get around but it’s not a female only group.

It's not precious to want a single sex space to discuss, and receive support for, a function of the female body. Please don't diminish women in this way.

Having a male in a breastfeeding group could be discriminatory. But not in the way you're trying to claim. Why do you think women don't deserve to receive support for a biological function we perform?

There's zero evidence that trans identified men can breastfeed a baby and a shed load of evidence about lactation fetish being a thing for some men.

Funny how the needs and safety of the baby don't feature in the numerous tedious posts from those supporting a man imposing himself on a women's breastfeeding group.

also revealing themselves intimately

I get that this situation is INSANE, but do you just mean getting your boobs out? Because don’t you do that wherever you breastfeed in public?

At our local breastfeeding support group (midwife led), Dads were welcome because they sometimes need to learn to support the breastfeeding mother, especially at the beginning.

So I see why you objected to the craziness of the situation but I think you were being a bit precious about the Dads in the group issue.

Oddly in some rare cases some men can actually lactate without any medical intervention. I'm not talking about men who think they're women and going on medication to transmute themselves, I'm talking about people who are the father, consider themselves male completely, yet when a baby is born they can still lactate.

Can you make a new group? Women's rights are being so eroded. It is not on.

So we have a set up where several new mothers who do need support either don't get it or get it in conditions that make them very uncomfortable, but that's OK because one male who can never breastfeed in the way a mother can is getting his ego stroked by being included and having earnest discussions about his efforts to feed his baby and his drug regime?

I don't say this lightly as my DD was hospitalised due to reflux, but I'm glad I switched to formula feeding.

Which I imagine means that some other mothers self-exclude. Why are the men attending? Why do their partners want them there, knowing that some other mothers will as a result not get the support they need?