An NHS trust has claimed that breast milk from transgender women is just as good as that produced by a mother who has given birth.
The Telegraph reported that a leaked letter from a University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust medical director said milk produced by trans-women, with the help of drugs, is “comparable to that produced following the birth of a baby”.
The hospital became the first to use the gender-inclusive terms “chestfeeding” and “human milk” for its perinatal services in 2021. It created what it called the “first clinical and language guidelines supporting trans and non-binary birthing people”.
The letter contained several guidelines on the ability of trans-women to produce breast milk through “induced lactation.” Trans-women must take the hormone progestin to develop milk-producing glands.
Drugs such as domperidone, which can be given to biological women struggling to breastfeed, are needed to help stimulate the production of prolactin. This is a hormone which signals to the body to produce breast milk.
The hospital last year defended using World Health Organisation (WHO) guidance of “overwhelming evidence” that “human milk” is better for a baby than formula milk.
It also cited a 2022 study, which found “no observable side effects in babies” breastfed with “testosterone concentrations in baby milk”. However, there is little scientific research into the effects of induced breastfeeding among transgender women.
Lottie Moore from the think tank, Policy Exchange, who revealed the letter, told the Telegraph: "This letter is 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.
"A child's welfare must always take precedence over identity politics and contested belief systems that are not evidence-based. The NHS should not be indulging in this nonsense.
Activist and campaigner for women’s rights, Milli Hill also told the Telegraph: “Male people, however they identify or describe themselves, cannot breastfeed.”
A spokesperson for the trust responded: “We stand by the facts of the letter and the cited evidence supporting them.”
