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March 17, 2008

Breastfeeding an adopted child

The Chicago Tribune reports that by tricking the body with medication, herbs, or pumping, adoptive mothers can breastfeed a child without giving birth. The newspaper included stories of mothers who made it work.

This Web site is dedicated to supporting the practice. Here's an older story about adoptive breastfeeding from the Web site of Mothering magazine.

Have any of you readers who've adopted tried to breastfeed? Were you successful? I'm interested in the pros and cons.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 3:46 PM | | Comments (2)
Categories: Adoption, Babies and Toddlers, Expecting
        

Comments

My sister-in-law is a nurse who assisted a lesbian couple where both Mom's were nursing. The one who had delivered of course lactated naturally and her partner had supplemented somehow. My sister-in-law was amazed to see it was working so well. The baby was not confused and it helped with keeping the supply going since both women were feeding/pumping. I wish I'd had that help myself as I literally just had enough to feed each time! There was no overabundance to pump some and save for later.

I have a friend who used a surrogate to have her child, as she had a hysterectomy at age 21. She induced lactation so she was able to breastfeed. From what I understand, the process can be painful and frustrating, but my friend was very glad she had that chance to do it for her child.

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About Kate Shatzkin
Kate Shatzkin is the parenting and families content editor at The Baltimore Sun and, before that, was its family beat reporter. But her most challenging and rewarding job is being mother to Leah, 8, and Sam, 6.

In her 14 years at The Baltimore Sun, Kate also has covered nonprofit organizations, prisons and courts, and has written several investigative series. She was previously a Knight journalism fellow at Yale Law School and a reporter at the Seattle Times and at the Patriot-Ledger of Quincy, Mass. She lives in Baltimore with her family.

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