Brighton NHS trust recommends drug-induced male breastfeeding in their maternity protocols

[zibzibara]

https://www.bsuh.nhs.uk/maternity/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/01/MP005-Perinatal-Care-for-Trans-and-Non-Binary-People.pdf

This is part of their maternity protocols for perinatal care. In the Infant feeding section:

"5.5.7 Non-gestational parents may wish to participate in feeding their
infants using their own bodies. Cis women who have previously breastfed may have the most success in relactating. Trans women and cis women who have not been pregnant may also be able to induce lactation to some extent. Methods for inducing lactation include using galactagoues and physical stimulation. Alternatively, some families choose to use supplemental nursing systems with expressed milk or formula."

They cite this website in the reference list: http://www.milkjunkies.net/2013/05/trans-women-and-breastfeeding-personal.html

Notably they do not cite any source which has tested the composition of any such male secretions for safety and nutritional value.

I stopped bf about 6 months ago so will be honest I have forgotten a lot of the details. But I do remember so many times I was just in awe of the female body and breast milk; and stunned simultaneously by how little they know, but also not that surprised as it’s a perfect hour by hour custom drink and therefore impossible in a way to truly know 100% about.

That our bodies can tell when babe is ill and produce appropriate antibodies, even from skin to skin and pumping. Not just lips to nipple.

That our milk automatically thins when it’s hot and babe needs more water.

The milk flux from sleep hormones and wake hormones for babe.

It’s honestly incredible! Women are machines. My male partner can barely make it to lunch without having a hanger breakdown and I could happily sustain me and my growing babe without drama. It’s pretty impressive stuff. Do I think men could do it. Instinct is telling me absolutely not. And that’s not even from an ethical or output stand point. It’s that from my experience men’s bodies are far too fragile on a calorie in calorie out day to day function level.

How little TWs care for babies if they fool around feeding them potentially dangerous milk. They must be the most selfish people on the planet!
But this is what comes of indulging their delusions. They are not women, not mothers,.and not able to produce wholesome milk.

Sorry but this MUST be stopped. The guidance must be withdrawn until research is carried out. I can only guess what this will reveal about the toxic swill that are male secretions but I'm damned sure it won't be anything that you ever want to put in an infant. How the f#ck did risking the health of an infant to prioritise a fetish come about. Anyone involved in that guidance should be sacked.

We need more people like you getting policies and procedures.

Yes it's magical Lemon.

A lact consultant I know said to me they think mammary glands developed from the immune system hence why it's so linked to antibodies and supply responses to need.

Male and female immune systems do appear to be slightly different- based on responses to viruses etc. and autoimmune diseases.

Anyway, my F word appears to have survived the night.

A while ago now but the fetish is well known about - there are publications dedicated to it - and described in puke generating details here:

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/the-queering-of-motherhood

but FFS! Have these ideologies got no bloody common sense?

No, because they started from the nonsensical premise that "men can be women". As Helen Joyce has said, eg in this video:

Well it keeps changing because it's entirely unmoored from reality. So it's got no connection with anything objective, and that means it's like a hot air balloon that you've untied the moorings and it's just going to float off into space. So that's why it keeps changing.

And why do people who are supposed to be grown-up people who are in charge of our systems of laws and you know who are meant to be working within an evidence-based liberal human rights framework, why do they fall for this sort of stuff? I mean one reason is because if you don't you get shouted at a lot and you get told that you're a bigot and often can even lose your job so they try to sidestep it.

Most people are (rightfully) afraid of religious/ideological fanatics in a position of power, so they try to keep their head down.

nice bit of understatement in this guidance (my emphasis added)

"...Cis women who have previously breastfed may have the most success in relactating..."

you have to laugh, right?

Not sure If anyone has linked to this but found this so bizarre had to look it up.

Found this piece of research in Canada (where else?): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5779241/

A trans woman, whose PARTNER was pregnant, wanted to 'breastfeed' the baby. Managed to produce enough milk for to feed the baby 6 weeks. Despite this it has to be Inferior, less individualised in terms of antibodies and other components then milk produced by an actual women, given the feedback loop during gestation, birth and onwards

This was the case discussed in this if you want to read an article on it.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2161151-transgender-woman-is-first-to-be-able-to-breastfeed-her-baby/?utm_source=rakuten&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=2116208:Skimlinks.com&utm_content=10&ranMID=47192&ranEAID=TnL5HPStwNw&ranSiteID=TnL5HPStwNw-uOWyW0a0EHFcOxL5MmCf5Q&utm_source=rakuten&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=2116208:Skimlinks.com&utm_content=10&ranMID=47192&ranEAID=TnL5HPStwNw&ranSiteID=TnL5HPStwNw-eFdm05QNJngWSRNMPW32yA#ixzz6f2Pil0Ik

Or you’d cry in disbelief.

As for the NHS using the “c” word to describe women - disturbing and insulting.

Just when you think you’ve peaked something even more absurd and shocking comes along.

I’m starting to wonder if any of this NHS guidance/literature is checked for glaring inaccuracies before publication by any staff members with a background in medicine 🤦‍♀️

RemainAtHome · Yesterday 11:00

Er…. It’s the guidelines they’ve always had for women who adopt or use a surrogate mother. I’ve never seen people being so up in arms about it.

They’ve just added transwomen to the lot. I have health concerns around that (due to the high level of hormones etc….) but seriously, how many transwomen do you think are going to bf like this ever? As described, it’s hard enough for a woman who has lactated before. But a transwoman?

This is a bit misleading because adopting (female) mothers can, with a lot of work, induce lactation without any drugs, by pumping to stimulate their milk production.

I see the La Leche League is actively promoting ‘chest-feeding or breastfeeding’ for transwomen; and under its “Nutrition” heading, imply that the ‘milk’ they produce is identical, saying ‘human milk’ is best for babies.

What is interesting is that this male that did this for 6 weeks exclusively was taking 50 mg twice a day of Spironolactone and in that documentation for this study I could find that this was lowered. However, the study authors did mention a study of women taking 25 mg and THAT the canrenone component that was considered risky only being 0.2% and considered ‘safe’. So this male still seemed to be taking double and the level of Spironolactone in the milk had NOT be assessed as safe. There seems to be a hand waving away of this fact in the study.

This is from this study Playgrind linked.

”At the time of our first visit, she was taking spironolactone 50 mg po bid, estradiol 2 mg po bid, and micronized progesterone 100 mg po bid. “

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5779241

The study they quoted the 0.2% from says:

“The major metabolite of spironolactone, canrenone, was measured in the serum and milk of a 17-day postpartum woman who was taking 25 mg of spironolactone four times daily. Milk canrenone levels 2 hours after the dose were 104 mcg/L, and 47 mcg/L at 14.5 hours after the dose. The authors estimated that the nursing infant would receive about 0.2% of the mother's total daily dosage in the form of canrenone.1] Active sulfur-containing metabolites were not measured.”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK501101/

I have now found this to be considered a ‘no’ effect on the infant written up.

https://www.drugs.com/breastfeeding/spironolactone.html#

It is notable (I might have missed it though) that I was unable to find the sex of the male fed infant. Because spironolactone has been noted for causing development issue for male sex organs on male foetuses in pregnancy.

I wonder that readers on these studies ever think… I wonder if that infant has issues in future years from this unknown risk. All the authors ever seem to be concerned about is immediate effects. Is there follow up being done?

I am gender critical and have been horrified by the whole shift towards 'birthing people', 'pregnant person' and 'chestfeeding'. Talk about minimising the unique and special role of women!

However, the idea of men breastfeeding definitely isn't new and has always been technically possible (men have milk ducts although far less of them), although it is vanishingly rare. At university I had a very tedious summer job involving categorizing articles in medical journals and one day came across an article about induced lactation which gave a case study of a man lactating in order to feed a baby, although to a limited degree. I remember that I found it fascinating and read out paragraphs to the rest of the office! This was back in 1994 and the article would have been published around that time (as we categorized recent journals as they were printed), although I cannot for the life of me remember which journal.

Many years later I became a breastfeeding peer supporter and along the way learned about re-lactation, mostly via domperidone and pumping. Sadly this was quite a common query on the helpline as new mums often hadn't been given proper support in the early days, had given up and then wanted to get re-started a bit later down the line. This can also be done using a re-lactation device (basically a tiny tube leading from a formula milk supply - the tube can be taped to the side of the breast so that baby latches on, receives milk via the tube and the breast is simultaneously stimulated to produce its own milk).

Induced lactation is a much bigger thing in the USA due to the higher rates of newborn adoption and adoptive mothers then wanting to start breastfeeding. Also for surrogacy arrangements. It is the same process as relactation (domperidone, pumping and using a relactation device), but much harder work as the nursing mother hasn't given birth and had the hormonal changes that help to kickstart the milk supply.

So the idea of men feeding hasn't just come about via gender identity politics - it is already known although very, very rare - however if it is used as the main means of feeding a baby it raises significant ethical questions. The main issues seem to me to be the risks of drug transfer via the bloodstream and the interruption to the milk supply of the mother, if the baby is not feeding from her.

It affirmed their womanhood - well that's just hunky dory isn't it ? Sick individuals.

I do want to continue to draw reader’s attention to this part of the study whether the male exclusively fed for six weeks.

”After three months of treatment, this increased to 227 grams of breast milk per day. Once the baby was born, she was able to exclusively breastfeed the infant for six weeks – during which time a paediatrician confirmed the baby was growing and developing normally and healthily.”

“Although significant, this is below the average of around 500 grams that a baby consumes by the time the it is 5 days old.”

Something is not adding up here.

or if the person is doing it for their own benefit as opposed to the child's?

Yes. Male people who now want to breastfeed for their experience of womanhood jumped on some very rare cases to leverage them into the current male people’s ‘rights’.

This leveraging to legitimise has also happened with the transitioning of historic women such as Jame Barry, and the utilisation of homophobic cultures from throughout history.

Yes. This MUST be stopped.

Most posters are (rightly) mainly concerned about the effects on the baby.
There are also significant effects for the woman who has given birth and for women generally as a sex class.
I already mentioned issues related to the benefits of breastfeeding for the mother.
But let's not forget the damage this is doing to women overall.
Erased by referring to us as birthing people, chestfeeders etc
Now anyone (or anyone who says they are a woman) can breastfeed.
Remember maternity is a protected status under equality legislation and there are protections for women who breastfeed. (Not that you would know it - I complained to my trust on behalf of a breastfeeding colleague recently returned to work, about the lack of appropriate places for her to pump and also the need for protected breaks in order for her to pump. I put my complaint on the hospital intranet for all to see. The CEO said "yes, we must look into that" and that was the last I heard).
In the USA a woman lost a sex discrimination case relating to lack of support for breastfeeding/pumping on grounds that men can breastfeed too. I think the basis for that assertion was in relation to trans men, ie women who breastfeed. But I think in a case like this I wouldn't put it past lawyers/courts to suddenly recognise that these are males who are breastfeeding.
Throw in proposals to change surrogacy law so that commissioning parents will become legal parents at birth, which will create a class of woman who gives birth but is not legally a mother or parent. What does that mean for women's rights/maternity rights? I don't want to derail the thread into a discussion about surrogacy, there are quite a few threads about the proposals if anyone is interested. There is also a two minute (about three clicks plus name and address) template letter that Nordic Model Now and StopSurrogacyNowUK produced circulating, I can post the link if anyone wants it.

The fact is this is an out and out attack on women and women's rights which we have to do everything possible to oppose.

I have been looking up the testosterone and the estrogen levels of women breastfeeding and this male while feeding. I am on my phone so I might be missing something.

academic.oup.com/humrep/article/16/2/244/649618?login=false

I found a study that looked at the hormone levels in women breastfeeding. A breastfeeding women without PCOS has the following testosterone levels at 4 weeks and 8 weeks of breastfeeding :

Ng/ml
4th wk 0.13
8th wk 0.11

A woman with PCOS (ng/ml)
4th week 0.21
8th week 0.26

The male who fed exclusively for 6 weeks started with 2.56 ng/ml. That was with the suppression drug that was not noted to change in dose throughout this period. And that suppression is known to be unreliable so the level of testosterone may have fluctuated during the feeding time.

No testing of testosterone was done on this substance being fed to the infant from what I can see either. In fact, there was NO testing noted on that substance in this study!

What was the sex of the infant? What was the effect on that infant? What is the future effect on that infant?

I really need to get going as I have a lot to do today. An angry letter is formulating in my head, if anyone else is letter writing how about sharing it so other time poor posters can copy and paste and add their own twopennyworth?

Suggested recipients:

Own MP
Rt Hon Steve Barclay, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
(Though I think the convention is meant to be write to your own MP and ask them to forward concerns to Secretary of State for health and also to the PM)

I'm not sure what the status of the Women's Health Strategy for England is at present - Gov.UK last updated the information 30 August 2022. It was presented to parliament by Secretary of State for Health & Social Care Steve Barclay and Maria Caulfield MP, Minister of State for Health. I think Maria Caulfield is likely to take concerns seriously from what I have heard about her.

Baroness Nicholson is another who can be counted on to take up the baton.

NHS Chief Executive Amanda Pritchard

When I previously wrote to her predecessor Sir Simon Stevens I received a reply from:

Matthew Jolly
National Clinical Director for Maternity and Women's Health
Acute Medical Directorate
NHS England and NHS Improvement

No idea if he is still in post but presumably the position is still there even if someone else is at the helm.

I am disgusted that the RCM appear (as far as I know) to be keeping quiet on all this. I think their official position is hiding under the duvet.

The current CEO is Gill Walton

I think Donna Ockendon is currently involved in another maternity services review at Nottingham but google has led me to her website.

www.donnaockenden.com/contact/

”In fact, there was NO testing noted on that substance in this study!”

The ‘nutritional’ value of these secretions seems to revolve around this study of a male with a tumour causing massive increase in prolactin.

But this paper doesn’t measure the secretion beyond ‘nutrition’. So it doesn’t measure what other substances are in that secretion.

However, the other chemical compounds are not being measured as far as I can see. Why? Why was something so simple to measure not being measured and published?

Thanks for all the excellent investigations and explanations @Helleofabore