The Mills administration has made a $50,000 taxpayer-funded purchase of larger size nursing bras that they say will help support both breastfeeding and “chestfeeding” for participants in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) federal welfare program.
“Chestfeeding” is a term used by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that refers to transgender and nonbinary-gendered individuals feeding an infant from their chest, often through the off-label use of hormonal treatments to mimic the lactation of biological women.
The Maine CDC also references their support for “chestfeeding” several times on their WIC informational webpage, stating that all Maine residents — including migrants — who are “birthing parents” can receive support for “chestfeeding” through the program, and that “Non-birthing parents” can apply for their children.
According to a no-bid state contract issued Nov. 1, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and Maine CDC awarded the New York-based company Nursing Naturals nearly $50,000 to buy additional nursing bras for participants in the WIC program.
“Maine WIC, as one of its core pillars of services, supports breastfeeding/chestfeeding,” the contract reads. “A proper nursing bra is essential to support breastfeeding/chestfeeding. WIC participants often cannot afford a nursing bra.”
While the state currently has a master agreement (MA) procurement contract with a separate company to supply the nursing bras for the welfare program, the state says their current contractor’s bras are “extraordinarily small” and do not fit the vast majority of the program’s participants.
“The State of Maine has a current MA for nursing bras with Medela but the bras are extraordinarily small and do not fit 80% of our participants,” the contract states, adding that even the largest size of nursing bras previously purchased under the master agreement “do not fit anyone.”
The state says that the Nursing Naturals bras have a wider ranges of sizes that go up to 5XL, and will “meet the need and fit a greater percentage of the population of breastfeeding/chest feeding participants that are served by WIC.”
The Maine Wire has previously reported on federal CDC recommendations regarding “chestfeeding,” including their advice that transgender parents who have had breast surgery and who chemically induce lactation may “chestfeed” their infants.
One CDC handout entitled “Health Equity Considerations” from June of 2022 states that “Transgender and nonbinary-gendered individuals may give birth and breastfeed or feed at the chest (chestfeed).”
“An individual does not need to have given birth to breastfeed or chestfeed,” the CDC claims.
When the CDC’s recommendations on “chestfeeding” came under public scrutiny in July 2023, several doctors came forward to warn that the risks of off-label hormone use to artificially simulate lactation could be dangerous to infants.
Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, told the Daily Mail last July that “we have no idea what the long-term effects on the child will be” from a breastfeeding trans woman using “all kinds of off-label hormones.”
“A lot of people are pushing for off-label use of a drug…it’s become to politicized that you can do all kinds of things for a politically approved purpose,” Orient told the outlet.
“The CDC has a responsibility to talk about the health risks, but they have been derelict in doing that,” Orient said.
The method that trans women can use in order to make themselves lactate is called the Newman-Goldfarb protocol, and involves several drugs, some of which are not approved for the purpose of inducing lactation and which may carry significant risks.
The protocol was initially developed in order to help induce breastmilk production in adoptive mothers, and utilizes a contraceptive pill to boost estrogen, physical stimulation with a breast pump, and the anti-nausea drug domperidone to mimic the hormonal changes women go through during pregnancy and birth.
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