Call it 'human milk feeding': Doctors announce new 'gender-inclusive' terms
The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine recently said it would stop using language it deems discriminatory to the LGBTQI+ community.
The statement also included recommendations for future medical studies.
Terms such as “mother,” “breast,” “breast milk,” and “breastfeeding” are no longer acceptable.
Last week, the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine announced that it is replacing these terms with “lactation-related language” to achieve “desexed or gender-inclusive language.”
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Though it contains “breastfeeding” in its name, the ABM will now use “mammary gland” to refer to “breast” and “human milk feeding” instead of “breastfeeding.”
Laura Kair, medical director of newborn care at University of California Davis Children’s Hospital, was the only professor to serve on the taskforce that produced the statement.
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Kair and the rest of the ABM taskforce included three suggestions to make future medical research more gender inclusive. These suggestions include “broader gender categories,” to “not assume that lactation follows a birth”, and “include information on history of hormone therapy and surgeries for transgender participants.”
Per the UC Davis website, Kair stated, “Language has power. The language that we use should be as inclusive as possible when discussing infant feeding.”
Campus Reform reached out to Kair and ABM; this article will be updated accordingly.
