[Campus Reform.org] Hospitals in the United Kingdom have begun using the term "chestfeeding" instead of "breastfeeding," just years after U.S. academics published a study in which they argued that the promotion of breastfeeding as the "natural" way to feed a child has many negative societal effects.In early 2021, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals in the United Kingdom drew international criticism for swapping the word "breastfeeding" for "chestfeeding" in an attempt to be more inclusive of transgender individuals.
Likewise, Harvard Medical School referred to women as "birthing people" in an effort to "include those who identify as non-binary or transgender," as Campus Reform previously reported.
"We are concerned about breastfeeding promotion that praises breastfeeding as the ’natural’ way to feed infants," wrote Jessica Martucci of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and Anne Barnhill of Johns Hopkins University in the journal Pediatrics. "Promoting breastfeeding as ’natural’ may be ethically problematic, and, even more troublingly, it may bolster this belief that ’natural’ approaches are presumptively healthier."