Midwives told to stop using terms such as 'breastfeeding' and 'breastmilk'

[MissMoped]

because it’s not gender inclusive language, I believe with particular reference to the transexual debate.

This is at Brighton and Sussex nhs trust btw, good to know NHS money is being spent wisely btw, poring over the “incorrect” use of language.

The word “mother” apparently should not be used on its own; instead “mother or birthing parent” (um, isn’t that a mother?).

Breast milk and breastfeeding is to be replace by “breast/chest milk” or “milk from the feeding parent”. “Woman” should be replaced with “woman or person”.

Gobsmacked.

Makes me feel so powerless all this, we are watching ourselves be ‘disappeared’

@7catsandcounting

What would the compromise be? I'm GC, but it's getting to the stage now that we need to negotiate some of these things. I'd be ok with "women and transmen" or even "women and other birthers" or something. As long as "women" doesn't disappear and I get referred to as a woman throughout my treatment. I'm happy for a transman to be referred to as an "other birther" or "birther" or "transman". Transwomen have got nothing to do with birthing. I would also like to see these changes made in terminoligy in male medicine. "Men and others with prostates" or something.

We need to start negotiating our way out of this. We need sensible options. Surely it's the only way forward. I rarely see anything about solutions to all this.

We need dialogue with empathy on both sides. I'm getting angrier by the day and it's not healthy.

And that is exactly what has happened. In the OP it refers to mother/birthing parent (not just birthing parent) and breast/chest (not just chest). No words have been erased only more added.

@Lifeaintalwaysempty

Makes me feel so powerless all this, we are watching ourselves be ‘disappeared’

Then let us not! The fightback can only come from us. I was sorely tempted to put, when asked by midwife for DS2 did I have any African heritage, saying yes - we all have as Ethiopia is the origin of homosapiens, and our other hominid ancestors. I didn't.

Do one fightback tomorrow, xx-chromosomed females - is it a form? An education point? Passing this forum onto a friend and ask their POV to raise awareness?

I am genuinely curious - show of hands who thinks calling it human milk is actually going to put women off breastfeeding?

I find it very jarring.

We also recognise that there is currently biological essentialism and transphobia present
within elements of mainstream birth narratives and discourse. We strive to protect our
trans and non-binary service users and healthcare professionals from additional
persecution as a consequence of terminology changes, recognising the significant impact
this can have on psychological and emotional wellbeing. Acknowledging the cultural
context in which service development occurs is vital in making trans and non-binary lives
safer.

Also, whoever wrote that pish was definitely trying to get a Scrabble high score.

This language is so dehumanising

"When a woman or person
consents to a test they should
be informed how they will
receive the result"

Woman ≠ person.

@redpencil77

KatyClaire, Californiabakes, so when a self declared woman ends up at a breastfeeding support group and ends up committing a sex offence, and when it traces back to the fact BECAUSE the law says any male can self declare female, can get access to female safe spaces - and what is safer than a vreast feedibg group, never mind potentially denying a place to an actual breastfeeding mother - it won't concern you? Because it concerns me

I'm more concerned about the hundreds of thousands of men around the world committing sex offences (towards men, women, and children) than the hypothetical transwoman going to a La Leche League meeting to commit a sex offence tbh.

OK then, it's either boob milk or moob milk depending on the gender the human person identifies themselves as to be pc lol, what next call mid wives, mid human beings and will these midhumans be saying, you moobfeeding or boobfeeding

@GloGirl

I am genuinely curious - show of hands who thinks calling it human milk is actually going to put women off breastfeeding?

I find it very jarring.

Maybe. To be honest when I read this thread, I thought it was going to be about non-breastfeeding mums (females) complaining they were having their nose put out of joint that they were using artificial milk. Shows how much the gender nazis have pervaded everyday life.

chienloup
What about the ones who combine both?

Chienloup - it's anywhere that females may need to do things privately - that it has been put together with breastfeeding implies to me that there is another door being kicked open giving predatory males another option on their lists as well as changing rooms, sports centres, volunteering for brownies as a woman leader and being potentially able to share sleeling spaces with fenale girls.

If a safe spacevis under threat, a male of any persuasion could use it to abuse a female. Anyone who says otherwise compresses females further while enabling predatory males

@BTV2000

I'm a midwife and, for fear of angering people, this has annoyed me. Fair enough if there is an individual who identifies as a man and would like me to refer to it as chestfeeding, I'll do it. I won't be changing my language for everyone else I look after.

Mu h the same when a woman is hypnobirthing and requests that I use the word 'surge' instead of contraction. That's fine, but I don't then use surge when I talk to everyone else... Madness

Please hold strong!

It's all bloody madness.

@7Days

chienloup What about the ones who combine both?

I meant it isn't about the same issue it might have been 5 years ago on MN

BTV2000 - we begin a war of attrition, one act per day, as many females as possible: awareness, form conpletion, education, refusal to accept wording/terminology

@Savethewhales

OK then, it's either boob milk or moob milk depending on the gender the human person identifies themselves as to be pc lol, what next call mid wives, mid human beings and will these midhumans be saying, you moobfeeding or boobfeeding

Oh don't give them ideas!

@GloGirl

We also recognise that there is currently biological essentialism and transphobia present within elements of mainstream birth narratives and discourse. We strive to protect our trans and non-binary service users and healthcare professionals from additional persecution as a consequence of terminology changes, recognising the significant impact this can have on psychological and emotional wellbeing. Acknowledging the cultural context in which service development occurs is vital in making trans and non-binary lives safer.

Also, whoever wrote that pish was definitely trying to get a Scrabble high score.

Pandering

Sorry off topic but now curious do you get male midwives and what are they called? They called nurses or midwives too or is it just not a thing

@Savethewhales

Sorry off topic but now curious do you get male midwives and what are they called? They called nurses or midwives too or is it just not a thing

Yes, and they are called midwives. Wife doesn't mean wife in the sense of opposite to husband, it means "someone who us with the mother" mid like "mit", the German word for with. Old/middle English

Does anyone remember a long long thread on here about the awfulness of maternity services in the UK, particularly post natal?
It was woman after woman detailing neglect, bullying by medical staff and near death experiences. I myself still have horrible memories of the way I was treated in labour and afterwards- and nightmares about how close my baby came to real harm due to the fact I wasn't looked after properly.
We haven't even achieved decent care during this amazing thing our bodies are capable of doing, so we should do well get to at least define ourselves in reality.
FUCK inclusive language. Only women give birth and if you give birth you become a biological mother whether you like it or not.

@IfNot

Does anyone remember a long long thread on here about the awfulness of maternity services in the UK, particularly post natal? It was woman after woman detailing neglect, bullying by medical staff and near death experiences. I myself still have horrible memories of the way I was treated in labour and afterwards- and nightmares about how close my baby came to real harm due to the fact I wasn't looked after properly. We haven't even achieved decent care during this amazing thing our bodies are capable of doing, so we should do well get to at least define ourselves in reality. FUCK inclusive language. Only women give birth and if you give birth you become a biological mother whether you like it or not.

Most definitely. With DS1 I was in the worst hospital I could have been given the findings that came out about it - I won't say which.

There is enough rubbish surrounding post natal "care" without gender nazism.

I had pretty much the worst labour ever - you could tell, looking back, they were under pressure because they must have been under so much scrutiny.

One midwife told me as I was high on nitrous oxide - as the breaking of waters had not got me any further than 3cm then the meconium came through - to "stop being a silly baby" when I was wriggling in pain as she tried pushibg a catheter in - in tbe end I remember my husband havibg to jold my hand to sign the form for a general for a caesarean after they had tried everything else.

I wole up with a baby in my arms, who was quite frankly the only person I was living for after 4 days in post natal "care" - coerced into a blood transfusion as I had lost so much in the section; cursiry information stated at the end of the bed.

As I woke up I was asked how I was going to feed him - I told them breastfed, as they were about to give him a bottle - he knew what to do, and the only positive thing I did have was breastfeeding advice and how to change his nappy.

For DS2 I had what I can now see was PSTD as the day arrived - midwife wanted to book me into same hospital - I said, "anywhere but there". Our other option hospital couldn't have been more different.

I know there was more crap I had to put up with at first hispital - I've forced myself to forget about it because of how angry it used to get me.

Just read here about this SNP MP being questioned ny the police about her words when someone asked her if she thought women were female.

Hopefully the emperor's new clothes of gender nazism will fall quickly

Midwife literally means with WOMAN.

@Thedogscollar

Midwife literally means with WOMAN.

Exactly - worryingly, it'll be the next "offensive" word

www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-56004722

Joanna Cherry

"Writing in the New Statesman , she claimed her belief that "women are adult human females" made her unpopular with some in the SNP, and said she was being targeted by "young men (...) who seem to have a problem with middle-aged lesbians who support women's sex-based rights".

'I was not surprised'
Ms Cherry said: "The reasons for my sacking were not made clear but I was not surprised.

"For some time, a small but vocal cohort of my SNP colleagues has engaged in performative histrionics redolent of the Salem witch trials.

"The question - do you believe or have you ever believed that women are adult human females? - is one I must answer in the affirmative, but it's not a response that is popular with some who have the ear of the leadership.

"It's frustrating because advocating for women's sex-based rights under the Equality Act, expressing concerns about self-identification of gender and opposing curtailment of free speech, are not evidence of transphobia."

There you have it - the BBC reporting neutrally on a woman defending female womens' rights and statingbitvis not transphobia. Maybe the start of the natural societal limits being placed on the gender demands?

To be honest "Operation Ouch" also described the sex of one the dictors on the show as "xx" meaning Dr Ronx is female - can't remember exactly what the presenter said - will have to rewatch when DC have it back on again.

'If you are under 40 and have regular sex without using contraception, there is an 8 in 10 chance you will get pregnant within 1 year.''
It's drivel. They are banking on people knowing what they mean. Even though removing the word woman throughout has made it nonsensical

Well, quite! So then the decsription is even more open to interpretation and can be used in a defence of a male sex offender who twisted it to his own calculated ends

Sorry, what? Not sure what you mean by that? A male sex offender could twist getting pregnant to his own ends?
How does that even work?!