Another breastfeeding one

[MisssCackle]

Couldn’t see a thread on this.
In the latest of Breastfeeding batshittery..‘Breastfeeding and Lactation Support UK’ have today posted this.

I am so angered by it. The UK breastfeeding rates are amongst some of the lowest globally. We should be empowering women, not erasing them. Encouraging them to leave if they disagree?? They should be ashamed.

That sound like hard work. Would put me off massively.

Wouldn’t consider myself lucky to be added to a Facebook group within hours. For accurate medical information I’d rather use a proper NHS service staffed by people actually qualified to judge what safe advice is. Surely people don’t expect that level of information and just want a place to speak to other BF mums or just try new things, or just have a moan or share stories

Well then our group wouldn't be the right place for them considering we are a team of fully trained admin and the group is admin led primarily to ensure safe accurate information is given by trained individuals. Not myths and inaccurate information peddled by untrained people which can be extremely damaging.

So if they want a less formal platform to just natter to other parents, moan, vent etc out group isn't for them.

Becky posted from a personal profile on a group of thousands of members. I am a strong advocate of breastfeeding and I feel very strongly about women..mothers being erased from this space. I dont agree that saying ‘Hey mamas’ is transphobic and because of that I would be asked to leave the group. That makes me so angry.

The aggressive tone of the post, and the quote ‘we aren’t going to keep debating the validity of people’s existence’ tells me there had already been some pushback/non-compliance with the ‘rules’. I don’t agree with you receiving hateful messages but you are clearly not willing to listen to why people have concerns about said rules. I am also shocked at the way in which you have conducted yourselves on this thread, as HCPs. Hoping you can reflect on this in time. But it’s all quite depressing, so I am going to leave now.

I recommend www.nationalbreastfeedinghelpline.org.uk

But how would members know that? In a medical setting I know I’m with professionals. I wouldn’t have a clue in a Facebook group and think it was a bit odd that admins were acting like medical professionals. Especially if they think women can become men.

Well because it's explained in the group information they can see before they join, it's in the group questions they have to answer before joining, once they are accepted in to the group the first post that pops up also explains it to every bee member, each week all new members are tagged in a post that explains the rules, the rules are pinned in the feature section of the group... We literally have it explained all over the group. Every post goes through admin approval first. It's all made extremely obvious to all members. There's also featured posts introducing the admins and their training background etc.

I think that's something you gauge off the individual group as people use them for different things and different groups have different thresholds for what they'll allow in the conversation- that's probably why there is a need for adequate moderation so everyone is clear and can make an informed choice. One previous group I had not long joined completely imploded because of other chat that was derailing the entire group away from feeding related topics and it got horrible very quickly and ended up shut down which i was really gutted about because at the time I was really isolated and was getting a lot from it. So unfortunately I think there needs to be moderation to some extent and obviously people have the right to know what to expect from moderators which means you need terms of use which everyone agrees to that's laid out at the start. Otherwise it can get messy fast because everyone has different views/thresholds.

Oh and it's also explained on our cover image of the group that people can see when jointing. It's funny youd trust 'medical professionals' most of which have very little training in lactation over those specifically trained in support.

TBH I always think the OTT rules, I’m on a few FB groups and don’t distinguish or remember which rules are in which group. I read it once, then it falls out my head. It’s not that deep for most people. It might be all your life but it’s not other people’s.

Anyway good luck to you. I would suggest being less aggressive and true inclusivity means accepting people no matter their views. Also men can’t breastfeed. Chest feeding isn’t a thing. Women can’t be men

Peace out ✌️

Yes I would trust medical professionals in a NHS setting and not some randos on Facebook on a group that isn’t regulated or commissioned by a healthcare provider

We are all regulated though by our training providers and insured. The fact you think the NHS is the best place for Lactation support shows you're uneducated around the subject. The vast majority of NHS professionals will have barely any formal training. It's actually scary how little they have.

You not remembering rules sounds like a you issue not a me issue. It's all over the group and 99.9% of members manage to follow them without any issues. There's a few slip ups here and there but when they happen again the vast majority are respectful and we move on

Thanks for the suggestions but I don't need any from you I've managed to run the group successfully for 8 years. I'm managing fine.

How would group members now you’re accredited?!

Facebook admins aren’t regulated at all. Don’t be ridiculous.

You could be anyone, it’s a huge stretch to assume people would trust you.

And yes I’d absolutely trust qualified NHS staff over some random anonymous person on social media. The fact you think the NHS has no lactation experts is hysterical.

Do what you like. But if you don’t want to piss people off so they talk about you, don’t do weird things like control people’s language and kick them off if they don’t buy into trans delusions

All the ways I stated above were very transparent with our accreditations we have to be by law and per our insurance 🤦🏼‍♀️ so members are made well aware. We absolutely are regulated by the companies and organisations we did put training with who provide our insurance. So anything we do on the group is scrutinised by them and we have to be inline with our regulatory bodies.

They have very few and far between a lot of trusts don't employ IBCLCs etc they may have some infant feeding midwives but again the amount of training is often less than desirable. Most are given the bare basics of training.

I don't care about pissing people off other people's transphobia is irrelevant to me unless they try to bring it to my group then they can leave as specified. Not sure why they'd want to be in a group who's ethos they don't agree with so surely it's best for them to leave too.

Except she never said the nhs has NO lactation experts at all. Many people in the nhs including many midwifes- the people youd expect to be the most knowledgeable within an NHS setting are actually quite uneducated around breastfeeding and how to initiate breastfeeding.
Olivia Hinge - an IBCLC midwife has a post where many within a health care profession disclose that they truly did not receive any training around breastfeeding - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOWCB_iAmGC/?igsh=eXNiMXgwd3d0MG03
But if you feel confident in using the nhs as your sole source of lactation support that is for you to do as long as you feel well informed, supported and you feel all your support is factual is all that matters.

But as is our group- factual, informed, supportive and evidence based, professionally trained support. Hence why unlike many breastfeeding and lactation support groups on Facebook we dont allow people to just comment whatever, whenever because its important to us as admins that our members receive safe and factual advice instead of the masses of information - although given in good faith - can actually be very harmful and dangerous to a lactating parents situation.

They’re just asking for people to not assume everyone else in the group identifies as a woman. Not asking you to erase your own womanhood.
They are already using the term breastfeeding, and they aren’t saying you can’t refer to yourself as a woman or a mother. If I was addressing any kind of public forum, I would never assume everyone’s gender unless I personally knew them.
Non binary females and trans men can breastfeed and deserve support, but might feel alienated or lose their voices if they were looking for help breastfeeding and it was all “mama’s” and “ladies”.

I get the bigger issues of erasure, but surely this isn’t that big a deal- every single person that’s breastfeeding in this group will of been born with breasts and a womb, and will either be a woman, non binary, or a trans man. (Edited to say that I realise babies aren’t born with breasts 😅).
And if, as an example, someone might have the opinion that biological sex is the same as gender, then that person would say these are all women! And they all deserve to feel comfortable when seeking help breastfeeding on a public forum.

However you describe it you are singling people out who may not want to. The one or two transmen may not be in the least bit offended at women looking for support from a group of women and using terms that come naturally.

For example, even though this is Mumsnet sometimes we get trans activists starting a thread assuming everyone is a mum or female. There's the odd male poster but they don't expect threads to be directed them, they just clarify they are male when needed.

I don't agree that there's much vitriol on this thread or forum. These rules are compelling language in quite an aggressive way and people are annoyed. Breastfeeding is only something that women can naturally do, along with giving birth, and feel a familiarity with other women.

It's about expecting people to self censor how they naturally speak about basic biology to be inclusive. The implications that doing otherwise is unreasonable when actually you are expecting people to view some breastfeeding people in a way that is not neutral, natural or necessary.

It goes beyond politeness and preferred pronouns - it's an area where sex and identity as a member of ones sex is key. It's not about gender, it's about sex. And so refusing these terms actually erases women as a sex.

I can't see it's been shared already but there is a good article about why sexed language is important in maternity care https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/global-womens-health/articles/10.3389/fgwh.2022.818856/full

I'd urge everyone to have a read.

I haven’t read the full thread but I’d not be so confident that this is just about trans men.

Emma Pickett shared a reel recently reviewing a new bf book in glowing terms which specifically refers to males feeding and their milk being as good as female mothers’.

she even added a picture of the page saying that.

LLL uk have gone full alphabet soup. Highly like this one has

You’re the one excluding trans people.

The only hate and offensive language I have seen is by those promoting their “inclusive’ group. Their transphobia has been shocking.

Jfc, the heavy lifting of the elephant in the room is that this Trojan horse of inclusive language is allowing male fetishists access to newborns.

@Namelessnelly give it a rest, you’re not impressing anyone with your faux outrage and convoluted narrative-flipping nonsense.

If you have nothing new to add to the conversation other than “nooo, YOU’RE the real transphobes1!1!! Such a plot twist aren’t I CLEVER??!” over and over again, let it go. It’s patently obvious to everyone that the issue here is not that the group is transphobic. The issue is that people are seeing our ethos of being actively inclusive as some sort of attack on cis-women & the concept of motherhood (which, it isn’t, but whatever).

Except it isn’t. Like, at all. “Male fetishists” do not have access to our group. So, yay! Dilemma sorted.

I am an IBCLC and when I was trained we had a 3 hour module on exclusion and we were advised that if we went into private practice that we shouldn’t use the terms: mothers, women, lady, female etc etc on our website or any of our social media or advertising and it was also advised that any images we used on our website shouldn’t only be of pregnant women or breastfeeding women who all look biologically female, as it would be exclusionary. I.e implying we should have photos of “chestfeeding” men too, or people who look like they might be non-binary…. Whatever they are “supposed” to look like.

We were also told we shouldn’t use any specifically female terms on our paperwork either, I.e don’t have a section that asks for the “mother’s name”, and instead it should say “feeding parent’s name” and then have a section where the “feeding parent” can tick a box to say what gender they are (we can’t have the option of what sex they are).

I personally didn’t adhere to much of this and nor did most of the women I trained with. I have worked in breastfeeding support for over 14 years now, both in the NHS and in Private Practice, and I have never had a woman asked to be referred to by any other pronoun, or ask not to be referred to as the baby’s mother.

Of course it happens, but it’s such a tiny majority that I’m happy to continue working the way I always have done. I will of course refer to anyone differently if they ask me to, but it will be on an individualised case by case basis as opposing to me changing my entire way of working to accommodate a tiny, tiny majority that I will probably never even come across anyway.

Please do not use cis. As discussed earlier it others trans women. Just woman is fine as transwomen are women. You seem very defensive. Are you saying transwomen are male fetishists? Wow!

So you are saying transwomen are not women!!!!! Wow! And you’re saying I’m transphobic????