
I breastfeed my son who has just turned one. I’ve never given birth.
I’m 28, a mum of one, a full-time worker and a wife to my wife. My wife and I have been together since I was 19, and she was 20. We always knew we would have children, and I have never wanted to carry a baby.
So when we started planning to have a child, there was not much discussion about who would carry. My wife had always imagined being pregnant and I just haven’t.
Before our son was born, I came across co-feeding where both mums breastfeed. It goes something like this:
About six months before the child is born, the non-birth mother begins a course of two medications. The first one is the birth control pill, taken without the sugar tablets. This is used as a way to emulate being pregnant due to the higher hormone levels. The second is called Domperidone.
Domperidone is used to stop nausea but can cause lactation by raising the prolactin levels of the body. Men have been known to lactate while taking it long term.
All the incredible things you’ve done while breastfeeding – mum’s will understand:
Inducing lactation.
Four weeks before our son was due, I stopped taking the birth control pill. This simulates giving birth as there is a sudden drop in hormone levels, similar to after delivering a baby. I also began using a breast pump to express every three hours.
The Newman-Golfarb protocol states that you should express three hourly around the clock. I didn’t do this. For starters, I like sleep. Second, I was working full time in a job where it’s not practical to take 30 minutes twice a shift to sit and express.
So I decided to do what I could and see if it worked. What I did instead was express as soon as I got up, and then three hourly until I left for work. Then I’d express before bed and as soon as I woke up again.
After a couple of days I was getting a few drops out of each breast and by the time my son was born I was producing 200-300mL a day. We had litres of breastmilk in the freezer.