A Swedish Dad is going above and beyond the typical dad duties of changing diapers or reading a bedtime story. He is attempting to breastfeed.
Ragnar Bengtsson, a 26-year-old student at Stockholm University, is currently in the process of inducing lactation from his own breasts by regularly pumping them. Bengtsson, who is the father of a two-year-old, has no plans to nurse his toddler, but instead wants to plan ahead for his future children.
Anything that doesnt do any harm is worth trying out. And if it works it could prove very important for mens ability to get much closer to their children at an early stage, Bengtsson told The Local, an English newspaper in Sweden.
Bengtssons breastfeeding experiment will be documented by Swedish TV8, a station Bengtsson maintains a website for.
So what exactly is his plan? Bengtsson plans to pump his breasts every three hours until the beginning of December. He is also a full-time student, which means hell be pulling out the pump during his lectures.
It doesnt bother me if it makes people uncomfortable. If they have issues with it thats their problem.
Endocrinologist Sigbritt Werner told The Local that Bengtsson might produce a drop or two after three or four months, but that without hormones (which Bengtsson does not plan on taking) it will likely be impossible for him to produce enough milk to feed a child.
Women breastfeed after theyve been bathing in estrogen during a nine month pregnancy, so obviously it takes some time, Werner, a professor of endocrinology at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, said. But if he works on it regularly hell likely notice a layer of tissue forming beneath the areola and it should be possible to produce enough of the hormone prolactin to cause lactation, she said.
