Analysis of the experiment of induced lactation in a transwoman

[NeurotrashWarrior]

There was a long running thread at the time that this was reported; this is a good analysis of it. The testosterone bit is concerning, as is the other drugs.

lascapigliata8.wordpress.com/2018/03/26/analysis-of-study-of-induced-lactation-in-trans-identified-man/

At the time I remember a trans friend discussing this. They said how it was a dream for them but they'd never do it given the risks to the child weren't clear. It was a public post and the actual personal transphobic hate they got in response was shocking. They'd said they didn't agree ffs.
I think only the most unhinged would think this acceptable.

Excellent article. But IF its true, as I profoundly hope it isn't - what kind of person puts their validation over the health and wellbeing of their own newborn child?

This is rhetorical, obvs. But when I think about the hours I spent struggling to bf, considering formula for my really tiny baby, torturing myself that I was failing my child... Much as I wanted to bf because I thought it was best for the baby, I'd have switched in a heartbeat if I thought another option was better.

I hope that the study wasn't true. It's nuts that someone taking so many drugs can breastfeed a baby. And the exclusion of the mother from the picture is disturbing.

I must say that if, hypothetically, it was actually possible to induce lactation in men and it didn't have a detrimental effect on the baby or the father then that would be great! I don't have kids yet but hope to in the future and it would be great if DH could also breastfeed. I realise that this is never going to be possible though because how could you determine it was safe without experimenting on perfectly healthy children for the benefit of adults rather than the children.

I read that original report at the time and thought it was utter bollocks.

I had trouble with my latch and ended up pumping exclusively for my dd, so I've a fairly good understanding of what it means to pump 8oz of breast milk and how much a newborn takes in milk (plus I did loads of research about it to ensure dd wss getting enough).

I tell you this: I cannot see how any biological female can pump 8oz in any reasonable length of time prior to her milk coming in after birth. Indeed, colostrum feeding is very small volume feed.

So if a pregnant woman would struggle to achieve this without already feeding a infant, then I doubt a biological male could.

Again, when my milk came in, I found expressing 8oz of milk took over an hour and that's full stream, hospital grade pump, and I was unusual in this regard. Every other woman I spoke to found it took them longer. So we would be talking about a TW daily pumping for hours to get a total of 8oz. And I just can't see that. The original report stated how long they pumped for a day, and it was laughably low.

Again, the average intake for a newborn is around 750ml a day with a low at about 570ml. This is, at best, twice the amount of this supposed pre-birth pump. Remember, there's no hormonal event in this case to trigger greater milk production.

The whole thing is rubbish. It's fake news.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_lactation

It can occur.

men use their nipples to sooth babies in one tribe

Italiangreyhound we all know that males can lactate, usually because of an illness. We simply do not believe that any male can produce enough milk to exclusively bf. Furthermore, given the staggering amount of drugs involved in this case, it's also inconceivable that this isn't highly unethical because the baby ought to be the priority in infant feeding and there's no analysis of the milk to test for the drugs crossing into the milk

PackingSoap thank you for sharing your experience, it confirms what I thought. I had loads of milk, but still struggled trying to express with a handpump (thankfully didn't have to do it for any length of time).

The author's summary says it all:

'In my opinion, this study is an example of how transgender health prioritises emotional needs of trans-identified men over the welfare of women and children and it is an unethical study, fraught with incomplete and misleading information, disingenuous analysis and undeclared conflict of interest.'

Quite.

I read the paper at the time.
A summary:
A male person claims he produced sufficient milk to exclusively feed a baby.
The baby was not his child; he was not the father (and definitely not the mother)
He still had his penis and testicles.
The mother's apparent wishes are only reported via this man.
No evidence was produced to support his claim of producing sufficient amounts - the ONLY evidence in the entire paper is that on one visit to the clinic the man supposedly produced "droplets" of milk.
Two researchers wrote a paper citing the entire cock and milk unsubstantiated claim as fact.
One of the researchers was themselves transgender.

Throughout the entire paper I thought about the actual mother, her wishes, whether she actually was the 'partner' as claimed, why or if she really wanted this genitally intact man who was unrelated to her child to have such intimate access to her baby, day and night.
I wondered if any of the doctors or paediatricians involved with the mother and baby were aware of any of this, or whether it was just a fantasy between the man and his transgender clinic practitioners.

And of course I worry about the baby. Not because of drugs in breast milk, because to be frank, I don't believe this man produced breast milk beyond those droplets.
But because this child is under the care of someone unrelated and very disturbed.

DS would not latch properly for 4 months. He was feed exclusively with expressed milk.

This proved to be an issue as the health visitors and doctors had no idea whatsoever what was the healthy amount of breast milk for a baby. All they knew was either straight breastfeeding or formula.

I spent hours on the Internet trying to find the appropriate information.

I then spent a lot of the time fighting the HV saying yes he WAS getting enough and no I should not top up with formula. Despite appropriate weight gain. He just happened to be a low centile (which I don't know could be something to do with me being particularly petite and also following a similar pattern)

In the end I stopped seeing the HV because I knew more than them which the better ones agreed with and were supportive but the others just had a negative effect on my mental health.

Now imagine this with a trans woman. And a total lack of information based on trans woman milk which will be intrinsically different to breast milk (the breast milk you produce at birth, after a couple if days and then after a couple of months is different in fat content and vitamin content and is designed to match your child's needs at that particular stage) and lacking in its adaptation as drugs can't replicate this.

The whole situation is a potentially dangerous mix.

Oh and the amount of time I spent every day expressing was ridiculous. Just about every moment I was sleeping or otherwise looking after DS.

Thinking of all the drugs women have to avoid while breastfeeding. All the women who have to use formula because they need medication that is incompatible with breastfeeding.
Why was money even spent on this?

Cos Men
Cos wooah cool wokeness, man.

Cos it's women who think of and advocate for the welfare of children.

So brave and stunning.

Transwomen wanting to breastfeed is surely fetish based.

Women who breastfeed their child do it because they have been pregnant and given birth, and they 'have to' (obviously these days they don't have to but hopefully you know what I mean?) because it's of greatest benefit to the child. Women go through hell, sacrificing their own comfort and sometimes mental health, because to them, the baby is more important (I should add that I was not one of those women and when it got too difficult for me I was cracking open that Aptamil). Even when that child is older and we get into 'the mother is only doing it for themselves' territory, there is still measurable benefit to the child. Occasionally women may breastfeed another woman's baby, again because there is measurable benefit to the child.

The question must surely be, in the case of a male inducing lactation by God knows what means in order to breastfeed a baby, who is actually getting the most benefit? And if the answer is anything but 'the baby' then it shouldn't be happening.

The original report stated how long they pumped for a day, and it was laughably low.

Ahhh, but you know, transwomen are just better at womaning than we are.

The original report stated how long they pumped for a day, and it was laughably low.

Ahhh, but you know, transwomen are just better at womanning than we are. They probably pump twice what a lowly natal woman can.

I'm an adoptive parent and our DCs where quite young when placed and I know of other adoptive mothers that have BF with amounts ranging from a few drops for religious reasons to attempts or even successful full nutrition.
The drugs protocol for a woman is gruelling and has a very low chance of success; it includes off-label contraception and off-label stomach medicine. I do know that some biological mothers use the off-label stomach medicine to increase supply too and even for them I'd say it's a judgement call about exposing the child to the medicine.

When we had our DCs I got "helpful" information from those active in the BF world about how it was possible to BF an adoptive baby. For many reasons, including the drugs involved, the timescales involved, and the low chance of actually providing nutrition, I never considered it and to have it implied that I was dismissing something healthy for my child was pretty hurtful.

This is not just additional female hormones, though. This is a full cocktail of not-tested-in-breast-milk drugs. That link (by a doctor) is damning.

PackingSoap same story with my baby, problems with latch so I pumped for 10 weeks. Every 2 hours, day and night, and any moment I could in-between. I read the article and the "research paper" and can't see apart from the 5 minutes mentioned how long this man pumped for? Did they produce 8 ounces in 1 sitting? If they did how did they keep the milk sterile for the rest of the day? Any pumping mother knows how painstaking it is to keep the milk sterilie. Did the just keep the same milk in the same bottle for a full 24 hours? Reusing the same bottle each time?

How did they know it was milk that was being produced? I can't see in the article how they tested that it was milk and not just a side effect from the cocktail of drugs?

I've been out all morning but you've all pretty much said the same as I thought and it's increasingly looking like it may not have been as official as as it seemed.

Also, this sort of thing really works against the trans community as Kat described which isn't fair on them either.

Drugs are rigorously tested in lactation; I'm extremely surprised no one did test the milk etc. It sounds like some scientist mates got hold of the drugs under the guise of a test and to spread some propaganda.

I call bullshit - the only “proof” is the claim of an extremely mentally unwell individual

This is an article written after the case study about 6 other transwomen who have lactated. Note that most of them do it to validate their identity.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.them.us/story/trans-women-breastfeed/amp

www.google.com/amp/s/www.them.us/story/trans-women-breastfeed/amp