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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Transwoman BFs baby for 6 weeks

142 replies

goodyzoe · 10/02/2018 09:12

No mention of the actual mother. Given the well documented narcisistic tendencies of many transwomen are mothers going to be bullied out of BFing now so transwomen can use babies to validate their delusions.

And what of the baby's health - the drugs used to stimulate milk in the trans woman come through in the milk - what is the effect of this?

We know milk is not just food but medicine. Even if a trans woman van produce milk with drugs to stimulate it - is their body working with the baby's to support their immune system like it would from the mother?

How fucking selfish do you have to be, to experiment on a baby like this.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.romper.com/p/a-transgender-woman-has-exclusively-breastfed-her-baby-its-a-dream-come-true-8146751/amp

OP posts:
nooka · 12/02/2018 03:03

Not sure if it's already been linked, but here is the paper: online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/trgh.2017.0044 it's just a case report, which are usually used to share experiences with other clinicians about interesting cases. I would suspect in this case the only active intervention was the varying in hormone dose by the endocrinologist. It sounds as if the patient sourced their own domperidone, skirting the medical ethics issue, and it wasn't research so no ethics committees involved anyway.

It doesn't sound as if the authors had much interest in oncology as I see that they've not been able to show any comparisons between the hormone levels of their patient and lactating women and no analysis of the mil at all so no way of saying if the baby involved received unusual hormones through their milk (but I did note that by the time the baby was being fed the patient was no longer on high doses of hormones or taking apparently taking domperidone. I was also a bit surprised to see the baby was described as being adopted as I'd assumed the patient was the father.

I'm not sure about the status of Transgender Health as a journal. It's published by a private company along with a number of other health related journals. There is an increasing issue with predatory journals (basically scams) and it can be difficult to know if a journal has high publishing standards or makes money by soliciting papers for fees and basically publishes any old rubbish. Predatory papers claim to be peer reviewed but often those cited as editors are not even aware this has happened. Transgender Health states that it is an open access journal but isn't registered with the Directory of Open Access so I think it's reasonable to have doubts about it.

nooka · 12/02/2018 03:06

oncology = obstetrics. Not sure what happened there!

Ekphrasis · 12/02/2018 11:22

As said up thread, it's not necessarily the domperidone as the spironolactone that's the issue, and um, well ethics.

Lactation consultants to over see the use of the drug.

(Ps It's always worth getting thyroid tests too if feeding support doesn't help eg power pumping, latch support.)

CapnHaddock · 12/02/2018 11:43

That article very much implies the TIM is in a relationship with the baby's mother. Unless there is more information forthcoming, the only reason he did the 'breastfeeding' was for his own validation.

Ekphrasis · 12/02/2018 12:19

Partner didn't want to apparently.

Married3Children · 12/02/2018 13:51

Except this drug is used to help women breastfeed- including adoptive mothers.

I have to say I’m wondering.
The body and especially women’s bodies, is complex. Plenty of feedback mechanisms that often go wrong. But at least it has all the different organs needed for the different loops (so that’s including ovaries for example).
These organs aren’t present in the male body and nor are the feedback mechanisms.
So how is that hormone working? Is it a case of just increasing xxx therefore body will produce milk?
What about the fat breast mild adapt to the nee of the child and it’s composition will change over time etc... how is that possible in the case of TW?
And therefore, even wo taking about the hormones transferring to the milk, how can we be sure that the milk was nutritious enough and adapted to the child and it’s development??

I have to say what I am also very uncomfortable about is the fact that this TW seems to also be the father of the baby, baby he made wth his female partner. Did I get that right? That he was like to be the father providing the sperm but also taking over at least some of the female role of breastfeeding???
God I would have left that MAN a long time ago.

UpstartCrow · 12/02/2018 14:00

I posted a link near the start of the thread. Domperidone is;

not considered very effective to promote lactation
illegal in the US, not FDA approved
only used short term in the UK
not suitable for women with heart problems
not suitable for babies with gastric or weight issues.

BarrackerBarmer · 12/02/2018 14:18

my domperidone dosage was 20mg 3x a day

TheGoalIsToStayOutOfTheHole · 12/02/2018 14:32

not considered very effective to promote lactation

It certainly was not effective for me. And I was on 180mg per day too. I expected it to work wonders, as thats what I was told. I am not sure it actually did anything at all or if it was the pumping that just gradually upped my milk.

BarrackerBarmer · 12/02/2018 14:57

I don't think it did much for me either, I just needed to feel I had exploited all available options.

CapnHaddock · 12/02/2018 15:03

I wonder how much she didn't want to and how much pressure was exerted on her not to want to

Aeroflotgirl · 12/02/2018 15:39

Marriedwith3 it all sounds bloody abusive, like he's doing it for his own self gratification. Totally disturbing and disgusting. Female breasts are different to male Erm breasts. Biological Females are designed to nourish a baby, Males are not! What about the quality of the milk produced, it is going to be totally different, to a woman's. Is it going to be tailored for a baby, like a biological Female's would. Social services shoukd be involved it's awful.

CharlieParley · 12/02/2018 17:10

Thanks for the link to the study nooka. It leaves a lot of questions entirely unanswered, but - given the ethical implications - I don't expect there to be proper studies to answer them in the near future. After all, the wellbeing of mother AND child is supposed to be one of if not the most important factor(s) in this, so it'll be hard to get this past the ethics committees. (For instance, I recently took part in a non-medical research project and even though my kids would have been happy to participate, they weren't allowed as per the ethics committee's decision under 18s were considered too young to give considered consent.)

Btw the case study also states that the transwoman in question was taking not just hormones, but also psychopharmaceuticals on occasion, but there is no mention whether those were avoided during the time that the baby was being nursed (as it is still being fed, it's entirely possible those drugs were taken too, given the reasons for their use and the length of time this has been going on. This would of course be an additional concern).

And the baby has definitely been adopted by the transwoman even though its birthmother was the transwoman's partner. There could be perfectly logical reasons for that (IVF with donor sperm for instance which may mean no parental rights for the non-birth parent in some jurisdictions if they're not married), but given what some trans widows report, there may be another less benign reason.

On a purely scientific level, the question to answer would be if male lactation is capable of the subtle nutritional changes that the female body provides in response to the nursing child. And we know that breastmilk is better than formula milk. Does a male body produce the same quality as a female body? And if it isn't as good, is it as bad as formula or still better? I definitely wouldn't want to see a single baby being denied breastmilk from its birthmother just to satisfy scientific curiosity, so I hope that for this baby this really was the only alternative to formula milk.

Oh and for everyone worried about being prescribed Domperidone here's a link explaining why it's safely used outside of the US, across not only the EU but also in Australia/New Zealand.

ibconline.ca/information-sheets/health-canada-and-domperidone/

In brief: The FDA warning is based on misinterpreting two studies. In one the average age was over 70, in the other it was almost 80. The participants had a number of existing health problems and the authors could not show that Domperidone caused any problems. Safety for babies was not looked into at all (obviously, given that these studies looked into using the drug for gastro-intestinal issues in elderly patients).

The findings actually showed that the females in these studies had a much lower risk which means that given the much younger age of those prescribed the drug for lactation purposes their risk was the same as that of the side effects occuring naturally. It is considered safe for babies, and prescribed in much higher doses in so many countries we would know by now if it wasn't.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 12/02/2018 17:15

I'm not an academic but I've been around academic articles on and off for a long time. I'm aware that publication in a journal is not necessarily a mark of quality. You need to know something about the journal. I can't now remember whether it was on this thread or the other MN thread or on Twitter, but somebody pointed out that the journal where this case study was published is not a member of some kind of trade body that would enforce some very basic standards. It certainly doesn't seem to be the kind of journal with rigorous peer review that gives real academics brownie points in the Research Assessment Exercise or whatever it's called now, and gets them promotion. I was left with the impression that it wasn't much more prestigious or objective than a blog post.

I'd be most interested to hear what a real scientist or medic thought of that article. Any takers?

Ekphrasis · 12/02/2018 20:39

I must say I found the paragraph I posted below wrt "on examination was a healthy woman" - I'm not sure many true scientists/ medics who must stand up to rigorous peer review could possibly write such a peculiar statement.

dontforgetto · 15/02/2018 16:01

It's made it to the front page of BBC News this afternoon... still the emphasis is on 'determining the optimal treatment for transgender women wishing to breastfeed', no mention about the effects on baby.

Ereshkigal · 15/02/2018 17:38

The optimal treatment is to tell them no, IMO. And threaten social services if they involve a baby in a fetish.

Ekphrasis · 15/02/2018 21:43

Ah well apparently it's all quite common ffs.

twitter.com/imogenbinnie/status/963963965796683776

GoodyMog · 16/02/2018 11:15

Did everyone spot that they were saying they exclusively breastfed the baby for 6 weeks on 8oz a day? That cannot be enough milk for a growing baby.

BarrackerBarmer · 16/02/2018 11:24

Did everyone spot that there is no evidence presented other than the claim of the father that he did this?

You'd think there would be SOMETHING presented as evidence?

  • we actually saw milk expressed?
  • we tested it?
  • we observed a feeding?
  • we checked latch?
  • we discussed frequency of feeds?
  • the paediatrician has this to say?

Nope.

The study, for those that haven't read it can be summarised thus:

A TIM claimed he made milk and fed his baby.
We took him at his word.
We wrote up what he claimed happened.
One of the authors is a TIM and a trans rights activist
No witnesses can confirm this written account did in fact happen.

CapnHaddock · 16/02/2018 11:33

Yep I think it's a load of bullshit too Barracker.

FaithHopeCharityDesperation · 16/02/2018 12:26

Littljohn in the mail today on the male 'breast feeder':

"Sorry, but I'm with Germaine Greer - someone in possession of a full set of wedding tackle is a man, not a woman"

"Depressingly, this bizarre breastfeeding story was also given credulous coverage everywhere...why are so many of my fellow journalists taking stuff like this at face value? Are they all afraid of asking awkward questions, less they are monstered by the deranged diversity bigots on Twitter?
Can they please grow a pair - if that's not too 'transphobic' - and stop pretending this is the new normal."

Ekphrasis · 16/02/2018 13:12

Yes, I'd like to know what the weight gain was during that time.

Weight monitoring is almost ott with babies, esp ebf in the early days (to the point where it can become obsessive.)

And how do they know how much was being produced a day? That's only known if exclusively pumping and bottle feeding.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 16/02/2018 13:59

It's come to something when Richard Littlejohn is the voice of sanity. Hmm

BrendasUmbrella · 16/02/2018 19:10

The different attitudes to this on different websites is something I find intriguing.

On Jezebel (predominantly a white feminist site that likes to complain about white feminism a lot) they are all for it with a few dissenting voices who quickly got told to fuck off jezebel.com/transgender-woman-breastfeeds-baby-in-first-reported-ca-1823038729 ("Great news!", "Makes me incredibly happy", "Very excited about this!")

On Lipstick Alley which is a large forum predominantly for black women they are very critical www.lipstickalley.com/threads/transgender-woman-breastfeeds-baby-in-first-reported-case.1441549/ ("Get the fuck out of here", "These mentally ill men never cease to amaze", "I am sick of this unnatural bullshit")

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