More from the annals of the Chestfeeding Society; 'trans-milk'

Hot on the heels of an article featuring one of the latest woke crazes, “chestfeeding,” news media reported on a “transwoman” who was allegedly successful at feeding his baby using liquid pumped out of his body.

Only he wasn’t really successful, unless you consider a teaspoon-and-a-half of “milk” a day good enough for a hungry baby.

Does a baby need two mothers?

The man in question is described in a case study published in the International Breastfeeding Journal. He started “transitioning” aged 24 and is now 37 and in a partnership with a woman who used his sperm, cryopreserved from the days before he started taking hormone cocktails, to become pregnant. At this point, the father started taking even more drugs to trick his body into producing “milk,” and at around 17 weeks’ gestation (his wife's, that is), he started expressing this liquid, managing to extract around 2 milliliters per day. He started pumping at 35 weeks, and by the time the baby was born, he was able to produce a grand total of 7 milliliters in 24 hours, about one percent of the amount needed to supply a baby’s needs at that age.

Two weeks later it was all over, due to the father’s exhaustion at the constant pumping, problems the baby had latching on, and the low “milk” supply. The authors of the case study do not note whether the mother was nursing her baby, although she apparently did intend to while pregnant.

All risk and no benefit

Frontline News has already noted the health issues linked to use of drugs for inducing milk supply, which include cardiovascular risks for the baby. Of course, given the novelty of the phenomenon, no one really has a clue what effect consuming this “trans-milk” will have on an infant. However, the Dutch physicians involved in the case described here do mention that spironolactone, an anti-androgen used by men attempting to transition their bodies to be female, will pass into the “milk” and that therefore, the parents should bear in mind the “potential impact of these medications on the genital development of the newborn.”

The physicians also briefly discuss the nutritional composition of the “milk,” although they did not themselves analyze it. A previous study of this liquid, however, showed that it resembled the milk produced by a mother when nursing an older child, with more calories and higher percentages of fat, lactose, and protein than a newborn needs. 

Any liquid produced by a father pumped full of drugs is thus not comparable to colostrum, the unique gold-colored milk that new mothers naturally produce in the first days after giving birth — a liquid that is full of micronutrients, antibodies, and more, and which provides exactly what a baby needs when making the precarious transition from life inside the womb to outside.

I tried so hard… but I'm still a man

Given the highly questionable contents of the “milk” the baby ingested, it might be said that the success of the story lay in the fact that the baby only drank the equivalent of less than one bottle of it during the two-week experiment.

The researchers, however, concluded that the story was a success because of the bonding experience, although for the baby, the frustration of trying to suckle and getting next to nothing as a result surely impacted any potential bonding:

... success of induced lactation may be attributed to parent-infant bonding, rather than the possibility of exclusive nursing… 

They also stressed that,

Chestfeeding may provide … emotional benefits, regardless of the amount of milk produced. One could speculate that chestfeeding, as by society it is perceived as feminine, may be gender-affirming for transgender women.

However, what their patient actually reported was that the experience did absolutely nothing for his dysphoria:

Our patient reported that lactation induction did not have a significant effect on her gender identity, neither did it alter the amount of gender dysphoria experienced.

To summarize: The baby didn’t get fed and the father didn’t become a mother, but the doctors thought that possibly he might have felt a bit more “feminine” after his experience (even though he claimed otherwise).

If the whole point was merely the “experience,” the researchers may be asked, why not just give him Soma?