A local trust of the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) has proclaimed that pharmaceutically induced lactation in biological males is just as healthy for babies as milk produced by mothers.
The University of Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust (USHT), which runs the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital, Royal Sussex County Hospital, and the Worthing Hospital told campaigners that “milk” produced by so-called trans women (biological males who identify as women) is “comparable to that produced following the birth of a baby” by biological women, The Telegraph reported.
Given that healthy males do not lactate, to replicate the female biological function of breastfeeding infants, ‘transgender women’ can take a cocktail of hormone-altering drugs to be able to “chestfeed” babies. Initially, a round of the hormone progestin is taken to develop milk-producing glands, which is followed by a lactating drug such as Domperidone.
Drugs like Domperidone are typically prescribed to mothers who are having trouble breastfeeding, however, according to the broadsheet, some doctors in the UK have prescribed the hormone-altering medication to transgender patients, despite the drug’s manufacturer warning against such usage over potential risks to the hearts of babies who ingest it.
Yet, the Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust trust has argued that “milk” produced by biological males as a result of taking drugs like Domperidone, which is also known by the brand name Molitum, citing a 2022 study which claimed that “milk testosterone concentrations” were less than one per cent and that there were “no observable side effects” witnessed in the babies who ingested the “milk”. However, the paper noted that the study only lasted for five months and no long-term testing was done.
Another UK Health Service Trust Caught Erasing 'Mothers' for 'Birthing People' https://t.co/iRiLZHHnaA
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 29, 2022
Despite deeming the practice of drug-induced ‘chestfeeding’ as safe, the trust did advise that hospital staff to tell “any parent who is taking medication (for whatever reason) to seek advice on the possibility of that medication being transferred to the baby through breastfeeding and also the health implications for the baby”.
Meanwhile, the advice provided by Molitum states: “Small amounts have been detected in breastmilk. Motilium may cause unwanted side effects affecting the heart in a breastfed baby. [It] should be used during breastfeeding only if your physician considers this clearly necessary.”
The advice from the NHS trust has drawn criticism from campaigners, including the director of the pressure group Sex Matters, Maya Forstater, who said: “For a chief executive and medical director of an NHS trust to prioritise trans identities over what is best for mothers and their babies is deeply disturbing.”
Lottie Moore, of the Policy Exchange think tank, which originally exposed the advice, said that the NHS trust was acting in an “unbalanced and naïve in its assertion that the secretions produced by a male on hormones can nourish an infant in the way a mother’s breast milk can”.
For its part, the USHT Trust said: “We stand by the facts of the letter and the cited evidence supporting them.”
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— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) July 13, 2021
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