According to breastfeeding guidelines endorsed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one option for transgender parents who want to “breastfeed or chestfeed their infants” is to induce lactation with the use of medication, but medical experts told The Defender the guidelines ignore the risks those medications pose to infant health.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made headlines this week after the Daily Mail reported the agency endorsed “chestfeeding” by publishing guidance for trans-identified biological males on how to induce lactation.
According to the CDC’s breastfeeding guidelines, one option for “transgender parents who have had breast surgery” and want to “breastfeed or chestfeed their infants” is to induce lactation with the use of medication.
Inducing lactation requires taking a combination of drugs, including hormonal contraceptive drugs to provide estrogen and progesterone, and an androgen blocker to reproduce the “hormonal milieu” of pregnancy.
The protocol can also include a heart medication, an antipsychotic, a sedative and the off-label use of an anti-nausea drug to stimulate lactation called domperidone, which is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in the U.S.
But experts, such as retired pediatrician Dr. Paul Thomas, told The Defender they had grave concerns about “chestfeeding” as a way for trans-identified biological males to feed babies.
Thomas said the question of what is best for the baby should be the primary, if not only, concern. “When we become parents to an infant, we set aside our own needs and focus on what is best for our baby,” Thomas said.
“When it comes to nutrition, breast milk is best,” he added, but “if making breast milk requires pharmaceutical medications with known bad side effects, the ‘milk’ produced is not ‘safe’ breast milk. It contains a concoction of chemicals that are likely harmful.”
PERCEPTION RESET 