Duke University researchers help transgender woman, 50, breastfeed her ... trends now
A trans woman has been helped to breastfeed her grandchild, in what is thought to be a world first.
The unidentified 50-year-old was helped to express up to 30ml of milk at a time, after a four week course of hormone treatment.
Researchers from Duke University reported the woman ‘lactated for a total of two weeks’ and was able to feed the four-month-old baby.
The motivation for inducing lactation was to create a ‘bond from breastfeeding that she had not been able to experience with her own five children’.
She was moved to tears by the experience, which she said had the added benefit of affirming her female gender and making her breasts larger.
Mika Minio-Paluello, a trans woman from the UK, sparked international debate about gender and motherhood after uploading this image of herself breastfeeding
American trans woman Naomi, 24, mother to three: She went viral on Twitter last May for feeding her child breastmilk she had pumped
The patient later stopped the course of treatment ‘due to logistical barriers'.
According to the researchers, who published their study in the journal Breastfeeding Medicine, the patient had said they had ‘a last-minute idea’ about breastfeeding their grandchild.
‘The patient first expressed the unique desire to breastfeed her expected grandchild at an appointment with her endocrinologist in the spring of 2022,' they wrote.
‘She disclosed that this was a last-minute idea that came to her very close to her daughter’s due date.
‘At five weeks after initiating treatment changes for lactation induction, she reverted to her previous medication regimen.
‘She states that she stopped pursuing her personal goal to breastfeed due to logistical barriers, such as the need to take care of her grandchild while her daughter was pumping.’
‘Her primary motivation for inducing lactation was to experience the bond from breastfeeding that
