‘Men’s milk just as good for babies as the mum’s’ says NHS trust

Hormone-filled milk produced by men who identify as women is just as good for a baby as a mother’s breast milk, an NHS trust has claimed.

A leaked letter from a Deputy Medical Director at the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust defends the practice of using drugs to induce lactation and enable gender-confused men to feed babies.

Sent on behalf of the Trust’s Chief Executive in response to a complaint about the Trust’s gender policies, it states that “human milk” is the “ideal food for infants”.

‘Human milk’

Dr Rachael James told the Children of Transitioners group: “Medications are sometimes used to induce lactation, similar to the natural hormones which encourage lactation to develop when the baby is newly born although occasionally some people are able to induce lactation without hormonal treatment.

“The evidence which is available demon­strates that the milk is comparable to that produced following the birth of a baby.” She added that “the term human milk is meant to be neutral and is not gender-biased”.

So-called chestfeeding by men is made possible by taking drugs such as domperidone, which induces lactation, but has been linked to heart problems, including for the babies receiving the milk.

The UK Government website states that domperidone use should be restricted to the relief of nausea and vomiting and should be used at the lowest effective dose for the shortest possible time.

‘Guinea pigs’

Labour MP Rosie Duffield accused the Trust of using babies as “guinea pigs for someone else’s lifestyle choice”.

Why on earth are we pandering to this?Rosie Duffield MP

“When a man has not and cannot grow a baby, why on earth are we pandering to this? Who does it benefit? Not the children,” she told The Mail on Sunday.

“We wouldn’t do any other medical experiments on babies. Breast milk made by a baby’s biological mother is tailor-made for that baby.”

The Trust, a member of Stonewall’s highly controversial ‘Diversity Champions’ programme, said it “takes the wellbeing and safeguarding of children extremely seriously”.

‘Stop indulging nonsense’

The letter was revealed in a report by the Policy Exchange think tank.

Its Head of Quality and Identity, Lottie Moore, said: “This letter is unbalanced and naive 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.”