'Father's Milk': Guidance for U.S. hospitals encourages 'inclusive' language change

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The U.S. Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine has put together a new “inclusive” language guide for hospitals. The guide, which is designed to be “gender inclusive” proposes changing terms and common use like “breastfeeding mother” and “breast milk” with a number of woke alternatives, including “father’s milk.” 

The guide claims that the colloquial terms in common use as “traditional terms” need to be reworded to be inclusive of transgender men and non-binary individuals who do not identify as women despite possessing the ability to give birth and lactate. 

As detailed by evolutionary biologist Colin Wright, the guide proposes terms like “human milk” and “parent’s milk” as viable alternatives for “breast milk.” 

Additionally, the guide suggests replacing the word “mother” with “gestational parent” and “nursing mother” with “lactating person.” It also suggests replacing “breastfeeding” with “chestfeeding.” 

"Father's milk."https://t.co/mZ7EuMqo9a pic.twitter.com/rpxuu3UX6k

— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) July 26, 2022

The word “breast” is also being replaced with the more technical term “mammary gland.” 

Speaking to The Post Millennial, Wright said the document was provided to him by a hospital nurse, who alerted him to its implementation at her hospital where nurses and doctors are required to ask each patient about the terms they are comfortable with. 

“While this policy is portrayed as creating a friendly and ‘inclusive’ hospital atmosphere, I think most people would rather have nurses focused on more important things like medications and proper dosages instead of devoting mental real estate to memorizing lists of inane ‘inclusive’ terminology,” said Wright. 

“ABM recognizes that not all people who give birth and lactate identify as female, and that some individuals identify as neither female nor male,” said the ABM in a statement in 2021, adding that “the use of desexed or gender-inclusive language is appropriate in many settings.” 

The organization calls for “future studies to include broader gender categories and include information about hormone therapies and surgeries for transgender patients.”