Recent guidelines on infant feeding practices, including “chestfeeding” for persons who have undergone breast operations or hormone therapies, was posted on the official website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for transgender and non-binary individuals. Several medical professionals, however, have criticized the CDC’s recommendations, saying that they don’t adequately address the safety of drinking milk produced following gender confirmation surgery.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recognizes that transgender and non-binary people can have children and can breastfeed or “chestfeed” them under the section titled “Health Equity Considerations” in the “Infant and Young Child Feeding Toolkit.” This recognizes that nonbinary people may not fit neatly into binary gender categories and draws attention to the difference between gender identification and sex at birth.
Breastfeeding after breast surgery is addressed in the CDC’s “Breastfeeding” section, coining the phrase “chestfeeding.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) affirms that transgender parents who have undergone breast surgery are able to breastfeed or chestfeed their babies, stressing the importance of healthcare providers understanding the medical, emotional, and social aspects of gender transitions in order to provide appropriate care and meet the nutritional needs of the child.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests that transgender parents seek lactation management and emotional support if they need help increasing milk supply, supplementing with donor human milk or formula, considering lactation-inducing drugs, avoiding lactation-inhibiting medications, or both.
The Daily Mail reports that biological guys who can produce breast milk through hormone treatment may find this advice useful. The piece, however, underlines doctors’ worries about the health of infants who are fed breast milk from biological men undergoing hormone transition. Certain hormone therapy drugs, such as domperidone, have been shown to enter breast milk and cause cardiac arrhythmia in infants, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been criticized by doctors like Dr. Jane Orient of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) for ignoring these concerns and the lack of knowledge about the long-term effects of off-label hormone use. Internal medicine specialist Dr. Stuart Fischer questions whether or not breast milk created in biological guys is on par with milk produced naturally by biological females. He expresses worry over the lack of testing and the resulting uncertainty over potential physical and mental health consequences.
No one from the CDC has commented on the situation yet.