Trans Woman Breast-Feeds After NYC Hospital Induces Lactation

CHELSEA, NY — A transgender woman was able to breast-feed her child after a New York City hospital induced lactation using a drug regimen, according to a new study.

The woman, who was born male, breast-fed her infant for more than six weeks after the baby was born thanks to treatment at the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery in Chelsea.

The study, published in January and first reported on Wednesday by the New York Times, is believed to be the first documented case of a transgender woman inducing lactation.

The woman, 30, had been receiving hormone therapy for six years at the center, located at 275 Seventh Ave., when she asked her doctors whether it would be possible for her to breastfeed her pregnant partner's baby. The woman's partner did not want to breastfeed, and the woman wanted to be the primary source of nutrition and care for the infant, the study said.The paper, published in the journal Transgender Health, was written by a doctor and a nurse practitioner at the center.

Using a drug regiment of domperidone, estradiol and progesterone along with breast pumping, the woman was able to produce sufficient milk to be the sole source of food for her child for six weeks, according to the study.

"During that time the child’s pediatrician reported that the child’s growth, feeding, and bowel habits were developmentally appropriate," the authors wrote in the study, which was published in the journal Transgender Health. The baby is now seven months old, according to the study's authors.

The woman, 30, and her partner were not identified in the study.

The groundbreaking research paves the way for future study that could allow trans women who did not give birth to breast-feed their children.

It is unclear whether milk from induced lactation, as in the recent study, is equivalent to milk produced by a woman who has just given birth, the New York Times noted.

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