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.

@Mockolate

'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?!

Re. access to services that are needed well, by, female women - female breastfeeding mothers

My kids watch Operation Ouch. Glad to hear those drs know basic facts.
Sad it has to be said, eh?

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

It is human milk though?
Like we say cows milk.
Or goats milk.
Unless we call it women's milk? Which I don't think we do.
We just say milk.
So no words before, just keep it as milk is good with me.

Re. access to services that are needed well, by, female women - female breastfeeding mothers

That still doesn't answer what I asked.
How does a male sex offender could twist getting pregnant to his own ends?
Unless you mean a male sex offender is going to pretend to be pregnant just to get into a women's group?

Breast milk would be good, I think.

@7Days

My kids watch Operation Ouch. Glad to hear those drs know basic facts. Sad it has to be said, eh?

I think the gender nazis didn't spot it. The doctors are qualified doctors - DS2 is determined to be a doctor too

@Mockolate

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

It is human milk though?
Like we say cows milk.
Or goats milk.
Unless we call it women's milk? Which I don't think we do.
We just say milk.
So no words before, just keep it as milk is good with me.

I think human milk is OK - XY males can have hormone treatment to make them lactate in which case the infants can feed in human milk from the male's breasts. Chest feeding is ridiculous

@Mockolate

Re. access to services that are needed well, by, female women - female breastfeeding mothers

That still doesn't answer what I asked.
How does a male sex offender could twist getting pregnant to his own ends?
Unless you mean a male sex offender is going to pretend to be pregnant just to get into a women's group?

Not getting pregnant, but declaring they are women. Then say that they are planning to breastfeed with partner - then go pre conception to a meeting - meetings were open to parents to be at our group as tbe uptake of BF is very low in our area...easy to exploit

I don't understand why chestfeeding would be necessary - transwomen and transmen all have breasts too, don't they? So they can just call it breastfeeding?

@PeggyHill

I don't understand why chestfeeding would be necessary - transwomen and transmen all have breasts too, don't they? So they can just call it breastfeeding?

The woke brigade passive-aggressively bullying organisations into conformity to an extremist set of "rules"

Nope. I know and like and respect transgender people who identify as both male and female but breasts and breast milk are biologically acceptable terms. Biological mothers are biologically female women who carry, birth and feed children. Not all biological mothers are able to feed their children themselves. Not all birth mothers deliver babies grown from their own eggs. Not all mothers are biological but this getting silly.

I call BULLSHIT on this dog whistle. Frequently health care professionals do training on inclusive language, so everyone can feel more comfortable and can be open to how individuals want to express themselves. No one is forcing anyone to never say mother or breast, and no one is "erasing" women ffs!

Dr Ruth Pearce quoted in the article appears to have a personal interest in trans issues. How does this qualify them to influence maternity care and why is the NHS enabling (and presumably paying) them to enforce their personal ideology on women giving birth?

@persistentwoman

Dr Ruth Pearce quoted in the article appears to have a personal interest in trans issues. How does this qualify them to influence maternity care and why is the NHS enabling (and presumably paying) them to enforce their personal ideology on women giving birth?

Exactly. I have a personal interest in trans issues, particularly the limit at which they impinge on females.

I hope someone has let the supermarkets and greeting cards companies know that they need to change Mother's Day to Birthing Parents day.

""I think human milk is OK - XY males can have hormone treatment to make them lactate in which case the infants can feed in human milk from the male's breasts. Chest feeding is ridiculous""

I'm pretty sure that no biological male has ever fed an infant successfully. What is produced is not 'milk' in the way that a biological women would produce it, and its not chemically the same or has the same nutrients. I'm also pretty sure it would be loaded with unnatural chemicals used to induce lactation.

Human milk is in fact more specific than breast milk. Other animals have breasts.

Though I'm still interested is wording in the NHS has changed wording for male terms.

Is conversation about prostate gender neutral? We can claim it to not be about erasure of women if all wording has been changed. After all trans women are still at risk of prostrate cancer, even if they have had gender reassignment surgery.

@Mischance

Chest milk!! - I love it!!! - the world has truly gone mad - completely mad.

Can you imagine an NHS trust troubling their pretty little heads about this bollocks in the middle of a pandemic!? -WTF!

Well said

Nice Gerbil made a very good point with their first post. Overall it is essential to be sensitive to minority groups but may I venture not at the expense of the majority.

Too often people who work for the NHS adopt the latest mantra in my experience and apply it to all. Hence the assumptions that all women/people have partners rather than husbands or wives, that nobody may be called Mrs for fear of upsetting those who aren't and so it goes on.

I recall being given a beige or blue book 26 years ago and the tone was so dumbed down it was extraordinary. I imagine its equivalent now will be dumber than dumb and excruciating. I think I discarded it when I read the sentence "some women might find painting their toenails as relaxing as napping with baby". No cognizance that some women might prefer to do something more intellectual and hence the minimising goes round and round.

@derxa @mischance tragically I absolutely can imagine it and it sums up all that is wrong.

I’m a bit bemused by all the language and also can’t really get myself worked up about it as language changes all the time. Breastfeeding used to be called nursing, for example. However I do think you mean ‘transgender’ rather than ‘transexual’? Even an old fogey like me noticed when that changed

Is this the same trust which used the case of a real patient (a woman who had eperienced traumatic sexual abuse wanting a female bodied clinician) as an example of how to handle "bigots"?

The guidance when dealing with women who wanted female HCPs or were disturbed by finding male bodied people on their female hospital wards was to gaslight the patients and insist the male bodied HCP/patient was in fact a woman.

I saw no explanation as to their duty of care to women who have experienced traumatic male violence and abuse or who might be suffering from dementia or another condition making it difficult for them to comprehend and participate in this bollocks.

Oh what a surprise, that document posted by a pp from Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals is edited by Stonewall.

NiceGerbil

NHS trying to get pregnant page has had the word woman stripped out.
Pregnancy happens when sperm enters a vagina, travels through the cervix and womb to the fallopian tube and fertilises an egg.

You’re more likely to get pregnant around the time you are ovulating. This is when an egg becomes ready and you are at your most fertile.

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.'

8 in 10? Even if you're in a gay couple? Can the man get pregnant?

It's nonsense.

It absolutely is nonsense.

A woman can have a full and regular sex life and have zero chance of getting pregnant.....because she is lesbian, for example.

An adult human female having regular sex with another adult human female.

Language matters.