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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday February 17 2018, @05:40PM   Printer-friendly
from the (breast)-milk-does-a-body-good dept.

Transgender woman is first to be able to breastfeed her baby

A 30-year-old transgender woman has become the first officially recorded to breastfeed her baby. An experimental three-and-a-half-month treatment regimen, which included hormones, a nausea drug and breast stimulation, enabled the woman to produce 227 grams of milk a day.

"This is a very big deal," says Joshua Safer of Boston Medical Center, who was not involved with the treatment. "Many transgender women are looking to have as many of the experiences of non-transgender women as they can, so I can see this will be extremely popular."

The transgender woman had been receiving feminising hormonal treatments for several years before she started the lactation treatment. These included spironolactone, which is thought to block the effects of testosterone, and progesterone and a type of oestrogen. This regimen enabled her to develop breasts that looked fully grown, according to a medical scale that assesses breast development based on appearance. She had not had any breast augmentation surgery.

When her partner was five-and-a-half-months pregnant, the woman sought medical treatment from Tamar Reisman and Zil Goldstein at Mount Sinai's Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery in New York City. Her partner had no interest in breastfeeding, she explained, so she would like to take on that role instead.

The milk produced was supplemented by formula because a baby typically needs 500 grams of milk per day at 5 days old.

Related: President of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine Says Transgender Women Could Give Birth


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday February 17 2018, @07:32PM (15 children)

    by frojack (1554) on Saturday February 17 2018, @07:32PM (#639423) Journal

    227 grams per day (7ish oz) is less than a newborn needs in the first week, and way short of the 25 Oz requirement in the first six months.

    There is a huge list [babycenter.com] of foods and drugs moms are supposed to avoid while breastfeeding, some quite dangerous to baby. Yet the chemical stew needed to induce lactation was thought to be a good idea?

    But hey, as long as he gets to play girl, who cares about the baby's needs.
    Oh, wait, is that a "won't somebody please think of the children" moment?

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by SanityCheck on Saturday February 17 2018, @08:39PM (10 children)

    by SanityCheck (5190) on Saturday February 17 2018, @08:39PM (#639448)

    It get's better my man!

    An experimental three-and-a-half-month treatment regimen, which included hormones, a nausea drug and breast stimulation,

    What kind of a nausea drug you ask? Could it be this one?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domperidone [wikipedia.org]

    Side effects associated with domperidone include dry mouth, abdominal cramps, diarrhea, nausea, rash, itching, hives, and hyperprolactinemia (the symptoms of which may include breast enlargement, galactorrhea, breast pain/tenderness, gynecomastia, hypogonadism, and menstrual irregularities).[29] Due to blockade of D2 receptors in the central nervous system, D2 receptor antagonists like metoclopramide can also produce a variety of additional side effects including drowsiness, akathisia, restlessness, insomnia, lassitude, fatigue, extrapyramidal symptoms, dystonia, Parkinsonian symptoms, tardive dyskinesia, and depression.[1][7] However, this is not the case with domperidone, because, unlike other D2 receptor antagonists, it minimally crosses the blood-brain-barrier, and for this reason, is rarely associated with such side effects.[1][7]

    Excess prolactin levels
    Due to D2 receptor blockade, domperidone causes hyperprolactinemia.[33] Hyperprolactinemia can suppress the secretion of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) from the hypothalamus, in turn suppressing the secretion of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH) and resulting in hypogonadism (low sex hormone (e.g., testosterone, estradiol) levels).[34] As such, male patients may experience low libido, erectile dysfunction, and impaired spermatogenesis.[34] Also in accordance with hyperprolactinemia, 10–15% of female patients have been reported to experience mammoplasia (breast enlargement), mastodynia (breast pain/tenderness), galactorrhea (inappropriate or excessive milk production/secretion), and amenorrhea (cessation of menstrual cycles) with domperidone treatment.[33] Gynecomastia has been reported in males treated with domperidone,[35] and galactorrhea could occur in males as well.[34]

    I'm personally not looking forward to reading about how a perfectly healthy baby was fucked up by another mental-illness-disguised-as-treatment.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Entropy on Saturday February 17 2018, @09:37PM (7 children)

      by Entropy (4228) on Saturday February 17 2018, @09:37PM (#639469)

      You never will read about it. The mainstream media will bury that so deep it'll never be found.

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @09:44PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @09:44PM (#639471)

        She is no more mentally ill than any pie in the sky follower.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by linkdude64 on Saturday February 17 2018, @09:57PM (5 children)

        by linkdude64 (5482) on Saturday February 17 2018, @09:57PM (#639476)

        Just like they buried the story of David Reimer. The Left: They "Fucking Love Science" until it conflicts with their worldview.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer [wikipedia.org]

        • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @11:26PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @11:26PM (#639509)

          "The Right", ignorant dicks who only agree with science that confirms their prejudices.

        • (Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Sunday February 18 2018, @04:13AM (2 children)

          by SanityCheck (5190) on Sunday February 18 2018, @04:13AM (#639590)

          Remember that story. I will never have my son circumcised after reading "penis accidentally destroyed."

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @05:30PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @05:30PM (#639749)

            Why would you have considered doing that at all?

            • (Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Monday February 19 2018, @01:35AM

              by SanityCheck (5190) on Monday February 19 2018, @01:35AM (#639905)

              Why would you have considered doing that at all?

              If you must know: Genetics. I had issue with foreskin not retracting, so I had a different kind of procedure done when I was around 10, not fun. I figured my son might run into similar issue.

        • (Score: 2) by Entropy on Sunday February 18 2018, @11:58AM

          by Entropy (4228) on Sunday February 18 2018, @11:58AM (#639675)

          Yikes. That's a really tragic story.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @12:40AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @12:40AM (#639539)

      If you read source, the only medication she was on when feeding the baby are estradiol and aldactone, both of which are considered safe for breastfeeding. The three month regimen was before the baby was born.

    • (Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday February 18 2018, @07:29PM

      by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Sunday February 18 2018, @07:29PM (#639780) Homepage Journal

      The medicine, sometimes they have the generic, you can have the generic or the name brand. You always, always get the name brand. It costs more, it's so much better. Propecia is the name brand of finasteride. And Dom Pérignon is the name brand of this one. I don't drink, a lot of my friends do. They say the "Dom" is the best. And we offer it at all my clubs and hotels.

  • (Score: 3, Disagree) by Phoenix666 on Saturday February 17 2018, @10:07PM (3 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday February 17 2018, @10:07PM (#639481) Journal

    That was my thought, too. Breast-feeding confers a number of nutritional, developmental, and health benefits to infants that formula can't, but when you're dosing the "mother" with hormones and chemicals to induce lactation it has to mess with the infant's system.

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    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Kell on Sunday February 18 2018, @04:49AM (2 children)

      by Kell (292) on Sunday February 18 2018, @04:49AM (#639601)

      when you're dosing the "mother" with hormones and chemicals to induce lactation it has to mess with the infant's system.

      It has to, right? I mean, those endocrinologists and doctors supervising her, and the other thousands of women who use those drugs, most certainly do not care whether they harm the infant. Certainly they do not.

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      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Sunday February 18 2018, @03:06PM (1 child)

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Sunday February 18 2018, @03:06PM (#639722) Journal

        I hear you, but a lot of scientists, doctors, and researchers certified it was fine to inject dairy cattle with Bovine Growth Hormone to increase their output, because none of it would pass to human consumers or harm them. Now it looks like it does harm [globalhealingcenter.com].

        Another thing to consider about endocrinologists and doctors is that they're bloody minded. They like to dissect things and try things out. They want to make names for themselves like any other professional of whatever stripe. Being able to induce a transgender person to lactate is an arguable way to do that, for them. So it bears taking their claims to authority with a grain of salt. Having an "MD" or "PhD" next to their name does not mean everything they do is beyond reproach.

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        • (Score: 2) by Kell on Monday February 19 2018, @02:50PM

          by Kell (292) on Monday February 19 2018, @02:50PM (#640101)

          Except that making a transwoman lactate isn't exactly news - it's been done before many many times. Honestly, I'm surprised this even made headlines.

          And yeah, I totally get that a PhD doesn't mean one is infallible (including my own!), but "at the limits of our knowledge" doesn't mean "callous disregard for safety". Given the long history of success with infants with those chemicals, I'd wager they're on pretty solid footing. Whatever the case it's a hell of a wager to risk your medical license for a cheap media exposure stunt. I don't think that's what this is.

          --
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