British NHS backtracks: We never meant to say men can nurse babies
The rise and demise of chestfeeding
Months after earning notoriety as the first branch of the British National Health Service (NHS) to adopt the word “chestfeeding” and to promote liquid produced by men on drugs as equivalent to mothers’ milk, the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Trust (UHS) has backtracked and now claims that it never intended to imply that men can nurse babies.
The newly clarified position was finally extracted from the Trust due to a series of FOI (freedom of information) requests made by an organization called Children of Transitioners (COTs) which has long been campaigning for the children of “transitioning” parents to be protected from harmful consequences.
This week we had a response from University Hospitals Sussex NHS Trust to our Freedom of Information request. They have now (at last) confirmed without obfuscation that when the Medical Director (on behalf of the CEO) wrote to us a year ago, the Trust should not have supported biological males (“transwomen”) “chestfeeding” infants - only women (biological females).
COTs notes that before they began to exert pressure on UHS, its written policy was that they would offer all possible assistance to men to “feed” their babies:
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 ciswomen who have not been pregnant may also be able to induce lactation to some extent.
Methods for inducing lactation include galactagogues and physical stimulation. Alternatively, some families choose to use supplemental nursing systems with expressed milk or formula.
COTs wrote to UHS in protest and the hospital trust responded with an insistence that the liquid produced by men taking certain drugs was “as nutritious for a baby as their mother’s milk.” It was at this point that UHS’ policies were leaked to media. The paragraphs cited above had meanwhile been removed from UHS’ website.
'You're recommending child abuse'
Unfortunately, although this NHS Trust has now backed down from its extreme position, the NHS as a whole, along with the British Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, is still passing the buck on the relationship between transitioning and breastfeeding, by referring anyone interested in the topic to La Leche League. As The Gold Report has already publicized (here), La Leche League’s position has become closely aligned with that of the extreme-Left-woke and members, even prominent ones, who object have been ejected from the organization. Their policy is that:
Trans men, trans women, and non-binary individuals may choose to breastfeed or chestfeed their babies. You do not need to have given birth to breastfeed or chestfeed, as we can also see in the experience of those nursing adopted babies.
COTs recently wrote to the NHS protesting this policy of referring queries to LLL, writing:
Although your website has removed the link to the Sussex trans policy, it instead links to La Leche League who are currently in the press for trying to enforce this child abuse.
As NHS England you are required to adhere to evidence-based care, including for babies of transitioners. Please remove this link recommending child abuse and unevidenced care from your website before more children are harmed, and advise us when it has been done...
We urgently request NHS England give a clear statement to NHS Trusts requiring evidence-based care and child safeguarding as a matter of urgency, including for babies of transpeople, and make this statement public to restore public trust, so the general public and children of transpeople in particular can be reassured Trusts will not subject babies to medical, drug and sexual abuse because men like our dads identify as “transwomen.”
'What is a transwoman?' 1 in 3 Brits get it wrong
COTs has yet to receive a reply from the NHS regarding its safeguarding concerns — although one regional branch responded by criticizing their use of “sex-based” language and linking “male lactation” to male fetishes.
Perhaps more troubling was that some of the responses received by COTs suggested that a sizeable proportion of medical professionals working within the NHS are confused about what a “transwoman” is — is it a man claiming to be a woman, or vice versa? COTs notes that surveys of the general public have revealed that up to a third of people think that “transwoman” is a female who thinks she is a male.
Where are the BBC fact-checkers when you really need them?
To what extent is the media to blame for this confusion? COTs points out that the BBC has itself promoted the “male lactation” myth, presenting it before millions as established fact. In one BBC segment, the reporter referred to UHS policy, stating:
Transgender women’s milk is just as good for babies as breastmilk — that’s according to a letter from the medical director at University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust … The trust referred to studies and World Health Organization guidance, including one case which found what it called no observable effects in babies fed by induced lactation.
What the BBC failed to report was that the studies referred to by UHS were only five in total and four of them related to women who induced lactation using a variety of means. The fifth study was a case study of one man. As for the WHO, its guidance in no place refers to men attempting to nurse their babies but rather to women inducing lactation for whatever reason.
After relentless pressure from COTs and other groups, the BBC finally issued an apology on its website for inaccuracies, months after the original furor and without giving any prominence to its backtracking.
When success is measured in teaspoons
One may assume that if “male lactation” had been an increasingly successful phenomenon over the years since the concept was publicized, the NHS, BBC, and woke organizations would have been quick to defend it with examples of “transwomen” nurturing their children. The truth is that examples of successful chestfeeding are nowhere to be found. In fact, an article published earlier this year in the International Breastfeeding Journal featured a grand total of one man who allegedly fed his baby out of his chest for two whole weeks, achieving a “milk” production of a maximum of seven milliliters (just over a teaspoon) per day.
The article mentioned almost as an aside that the man concerned was taking various drugs both to “transition” and to induce “milk” supply, such as spironolactone (an anti-androgen with uncertain consequences for genital development of nursing babies) and domperidone with its known cardiac risks for babies.
Babies and children are still at risk
Children of Transitioners welcomes this latest move by UHS to distance itself from its extreme positions, while noting that children are still not safe from men with such ideas.
I am reminded of something Helen Joyce (of Sex Matters) said a while ago, that she thought it would be enough to say, “They are castrating gay children!” and people would listen and agree and do something.
We thought it would be enough to say that men like our fathers were using children as sexual props, and feeding them dangerous liquid in the process, and those in authority with safeguarding responsibility would take notice and stop it – however these men “identify.”
This has not happened, and few seem to be able to articulate why.
