Paula Modersohn-Becker (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons

Let me say up front that I have limited direct experience with adoption. Some members of my extended family have adopted children, another has given up an infant for adoption, and I have friends who have adopted children, and other friends who are adopted. It was one of those adopted friends who pointed me to this uncritical article from last fall about the practice of adoptive mothers ‘learning’ to breastfeed.

I’ve placed learning in scare quotes because this article isn’t about adoptive mothers developing a skill. It’s about taking high-risk drugs so that they can have the experience of breastfeeding their adopted children, even though they will be unable to produce enough breastmilk to nurse exclusively. But by taking combined oral contraceptives continuously for several months (which, contrary to the popular belief asserted in the article, does not “trick the body into thinking it’s pregnant”) and following up with domperidone, an antiemitic drug which sometimes has the side effect of causing lactation — even in men — some adoptive mothers are able to force their bodies to lactate.

What’s so terrible about this, you may be wondering. Domperidone isn’t approved by the FDA for use in the US, even for its intended purpose in treating nausea and vomiting, so it is usually purchased by ordering from other countries. The FDA, however, has not been silent about domperidone: The agency has issued multiple safety alerts, advising healthcare professionals and breastfeeding women NOT to use the drug. Although the amount bioavailable to the infant is small, domperidone is excreted in breastmilk.

The hormones in the birth control pill are also excreted in breast milk, and are suspected to promote growth of breast cancers, if not actually cause them. (And who can forget that immortal bit of testimony from the Nelson Pill hearings in 1970, “Estrogen is to cancer what fertilizer is to wheat”?)

I appreciate the desire of new moms to bond with their babies, I really do. But if you’re willing to take these kinds of risks with your own health and your baby’s, I have to wonder if your desire to breastfeed is really about the relationship with your child.

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