Table 1.

Suggested Terms in Breastfeeding and Human Lactation

Traditional terms	Gender-inclusive terms	Clinical contexts
mother, father, birth mother	parent, gestational parent; combinations may be used for clarity, such as “mothers and gestational parents”	Ask the patient(s) for their affirmed terminology
she, her, hers he, him, his	they/them, (if gender is not specified)
breast	mammary gland
breastfeeding	breastfeeding, chestfeeding, lactating, expressing, pumping, human milk feeding
breast milk	milk, human milk, mother's own milk, parent's milk, father's milk
breastfeeding mother or nursing mother	lactating parent, lactating person; combinations may be used for clarity, such as “breastfeeding mothers and lactating parents”
born male/female (as applied to people who identify as anything but cisgender)	noted as male/female at birth or recorded as male/female at birth or assigned male/female at birth

The terms on the left are not incorrect and are appropriate in many settings, but terms in the middle column are suitable substitutes when gender-inclusive language is appropriate.