Breastfeeding counsellor training

[mirandathemagpie]

Just signed up to online training that can go towards the IBCLC. I had to read the section on inclusive language before I could start a module. It noted:
"breastfeeding" is used interchangeably with "nursing", "chestfeeding" and "human milk feeding"
and
the use of "human milk" and "parent milk" is preferable to "breastmilk" and "mother's milk" 😡

I'm interested to see how they follow through with this style guide. Pretty disappointed, and glad I'm not paying for this bs.

(name changed because paranoid 😬)

There are some lactation consultants I know well who, while they would possibly respect the language a mum who's just given birth and who needs to see her, are very terfy indeed.

The more the merrier imo.

IIRC the (fantastic) Analytical Armadillo has dipped a toe in tervern waters.

I recognise it’s a delicate balance, no one wants to do anything that will prevent a mother-baby dyad reaching out for help, regardless of how the mother identifies or where her political allegiances lie.

Getting babies fed and helping mothers achieve self set breastfeeding goals is the important bit (but that’s not possible without facing up to the material reality of our wonderful, messy, leaky, sore, beautiful, sweaty, squishy female bodies).

I’m really sad to read that your Muslim mum’s are unable to attend the Children’s Centre group.

I hope they are able to make full use of the Latte session.

I do sympathise with women who want their male partner around to support them but I can’t help but feel the women who don’t have partner support are the ones who perhaps need the solidarity of a women-only group the most.

I had one of my babies as a completely solo mum (25 years ago) and I clearly remember looking up how to cope with pregnancy fatigue in that ‘What to Expect When You Are Expecting’ book and when I read ‘Get your partner to bring you breakfast in bed so that you can rest for longer’ I hurled the whole sodding book at the wall.

I would not have appreciated sitting in a breastfeeding support session surrounded by other women’s husbands! Thankfully my mother came to ante natal classes with me (and she Hard Paddington Stared the rando father-to-be who asked me if I were expecting twins? No mate, just a ruddy great ten pounder of a baby! Doubt he would’ve said that if my son’s 6ft 7 father had been there).

That video is really interesting - Jasmine Sussex joins at about 15 minutes.
The lovely Aussie terven don't mince their words! 😂

On another note, after Jasmine leaves they describe a horrifying criminal case which I don't think made the news in the UK. Worth a listen.

I attended a wonderful bf support group with my older two children and the facilitator was very firm that men were not allowed. There could be up to 20 of us there, with babies from newborn to toddlers. We talked about everything. There is no way those women would have been so open with men present.

I currently attend a small playgroup and we go through waves where dads attend too. It changes the dynamic, and I see it as a positive, but you definitely get different types of conversations. It is not a place for dedicated postnatal support though.

I spent 13 years in the 70's/80/s/early 90s as a breastfeeding counsellor for the NCT. Thank goodness most of this crap wasn't around then.

More recently, I had an interesting (for a limited sense of interesting) exchange of tweets on Twitter (as it then was) where I pointed out that 'chestfeeding' was a stupid term, as men had breast tissue and could get breast cancer as well as women (and neither sex call it chest cancer), and that breastbones were not called 'chestbones'. I said they could call it what they liked but I was entitled to call it absurd. I didn't get a pile-on but my respondents were clearly unhappy with this thought, which couldn't of course be seen as transphobic as it was clear about what men had.

You are completely correct, @Britinme but I think part of the problem is that many women who are active in breastfeeding support are relatively young, finding their feet again after having young children and may also have interests or professional work in related fields. So being ‘cancelled’ (as nearly happened to Milli Hill) can be hugely damaging.

Just an update to this, since I am approaching midway in the training module. So far, apart from a very brief paragraph telling us to be mindful of the needs of LGBT+ parents, all references are to mother, mum, breastfeeding and breastmilk. There is one paper that we have been directed to read, published in 2019, which references human milk, but the emphasis remains on mothers and breastfeeding. Phew!

Thank goodness.

That's a relief, op! Hope the actual breastfeeding stuff has been useful too. Just wanted to say again what a good thing I think it is you're doing xx

well done OP. breastfeeding was the hardest thing i did in my life.

inclusion of men means exclusion of women.

On every thread about changes in language to suit this insidious creeping ideology, you get the usual "be kind" brigade who pop along and tell us this isn't REALLY happening in the "real" world.
Once again, proof that these changes ARE happening.
"Parent milk"?

Get to fuck.

I noticed changes on BfN aims from their web site a while ago.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4588083-breastfeeding-network-new-vision-aims

BfN was always v mother / bf dyad centred and I think diluting that isn't helpful. I am no longer involved in bfn so I don't know if there habe been arguments about this, or if it's been pushed through without discussion.

It's good to gear that your training has been sensible.

Also, if you don't know about it there is a campaign group called 'with woman' that's worth looking into.
https://twitter.com/WeAreWithWoman

BfN is completely captured at the higher levels as far as I can tell, the link above attests to that. I don’t know if anyone is fighting against it from the inside. All the BfN people I know locally are sold on using confusing gender identity based language.

The Association of Breastfeeding Mothers, so I hear, is thinking about a name change. I believe it was one of their members who wrote a book about breasts aimed at 9-13 year old girls which included a chapter along the lines of, if you don’t like your breasts you can have a double mastectomy and be a boy instead.

If I have my facts right La Leche League Leaders in the UK have recently been told that it would be illegal discrimination for them to refuse to support a man to breastfeed or to exclude a man from their meetings. They don’t seem to know about the proportionate means of achieving a legitimate ends part of the EA 2010. When I attended with my little ones years ago their meetings were for breastfeeding women only and I really valued that exclusive space. Now they are for anyone who is feeding a baby human milk by any means or who is interested in feeding a baby human milk.

I don’t know anything about the current state of the NCT but they have always been an organisation aimed at both parents so perhaps the loss of the words mother and father have been less noticeable there.

None of the breastfeeding specific groups are standing up for mothers and babies anymore. I never imagined they would fall! They have completely abandoned their purpose and are now actively working against it.

I thought the argument on empowering women through woman centred language and plain English was won in the 90’s. What an incredible turnaround.

It's so sad how the BF associations are all falling. I've seen it in parenting and bf FB groups over the years too. Women admonishing other women for daring to call women mothers, mums, mamas, and don't you ever call anyone a supermum, how utterly offensive 🙄

Thanks for the link @Manderleyagain

Oh goodness, that is depressing about BfN, ABM and LLL....

Now they are for anyone who is feeding a baby human milk by any means or who is interested in feeding a baby human milk.
That conjures up a very dystopian image of a man bringing a baby to a LLL group and getting support to chest-feed while the mother is strapped to a double breast pump at home.

If anybody asks about male breastfeeding, point them at this: x.com/zaelefty/status/1698590752702386397?s=61&t=5wM6rrCIVAeqWs6wZl1YCQ