Yes, Virginia, there really are wet nurses.

Yeah, the idea of wet nursing in addition to rather than instead of mother's feeding is a little bit easier for me to stomach. There's also an interesting health component there. At the time he was raised and where he was raised, there weren't immunizations. Having multiple nursing mothers meant that immunity (passed through breast milk) was spread throughout the whole community rather than just within one family. It seems to me this would maximize the number of diseases one child would be immune to since it seems possible that different mothers would have different immunities in their milk. I'm just making an anecdotal guess about this, of course, but my husband to this day almost never gets sick -- even when the rest of us do.

That makes a lot of sense!

I think so too. Of course, I have no idea if they thought about it like that or if it was just an added benefit, but interesting nonetheless.

Absolutely fascinating!

Does anyone know when it was "discovered" that breast milk passed immunity on to the child?

I don't know but it must have been some time after the '30's? There was a time in this country when women were advised NOT to breast feed and instead to feed their children with sterilized bottles and such. I think that was early this century so they must have discovered it after that and reversed themselves. But I'm just talking out of my ass at this point, I'll go see what I can find on the internet.

One of the articles I looked at yesterday, maybe the one I linked in the first post, said something about breast feeding reaching an all time low in popularity in the 1970s.

Then Farrah Fawcett made that poster and turned everything around...

That communal thing takes away my big problem with it, which is the baby's reaction if (as I imagine would be the case) a hired wet nurse suddenly disappears from their life.

Not sure if that makes me a would-be pornographer, but I have to admit it got my attention -- which, by the way, is quite usual for your headlines.

I'm angling for a lucrative career writing headlines for the National Enquirer. Practice makes perfect!

Better start writing your resume, you're pretty close to perfection already.

As to the question you asked, I know only one example of a wet-nurse in my extended circle of friends. The husband of a friend of mine was nursed and to a large extent raised by one because his mother couldn't give milk. I personally suspect she wouldn't give milk really -- his family is Southern English upperclass with lots of prudish hangups about breasts, and his wife, my friend, mentioned that quite a lot of mothers in his circle "couldn't" give milk.

Anyway, according to her, the husband's wet-nurse is as close to her -- breastlings? rental suckers? -- as she is to her own children, and he is closer to her than to his own mother. My friend tells me that this, too, is not uncommon among people of her husband's backgrounds. Personally, I listend to this story like I would read a National Geographic article about some really strange Sibirian culture -- I find the phenomenon interesting, odd, but not emotionally disturbing in any way.

Rental suckers!?
<snork>

What would they be called?

We must be a group of well-met people. Four people in this forum know someone who was wet nursed or, in my case, someone invited to become one.

Perhaps it is more common than anyone really suspects.

I can totally see it as an upper crust type of hired help. In its current incarnation among the Hollywood set it certainly is. I can't imagine that it would be cheap to hire someone to tend to a newborn around the clock. Maybe a lot of the "nannys" are really wet nurses.

The psychological impact on the child is something I wouldn't even hazard a guess on. I think it is very interesting that some women do this to foster community and others hire someone to do it so they won't be bothered.

Interesting too that women go to such great lengths to simulate breast feeding instead of just using a bottle.

I'm going to preface this by saying I've been up since 2:30 AM so I might be just..... ummmm... floating.

It crossed my mind today about how women who are in close association often have their periods at the same time meaning they are probably fertile at the same time.

If you've ever worked in an office full of fertile women (I'm sorry) you know that they often end up pregnant at the same time too.

Could the assurance that someone would be around who could feed these children if something happened to the mother have some sort of evolutionary logic?

Sure! That's been actually shown through studies, read about it somewhere recently. (Science Times?) That the presence of newborns makes a woman more fertile; something about "OK, environment seems hospitable to infants surviving at this moment."

Oh good to know that not only am I not.... ummmm... floating.... (yet) but that my instinct actually makes some sense.

I'd be very interested in reading that, soz, if you happen to recollect where you saw it.

Here is an aritcle I read the other day that sort of , in a twisted way , gives a bit of ground to my claim about
Boobs mean sex, not food.

Mother allegedly kills baby while breast-feeding




First of all....
why in the FCUK was the title " BREASTFEEDING" ? as if THAT is what killed this child? It was a DRUNK mother that killed this child.
And if her smothering him wouldnt have killed him, the alcohol content in her breast milk would have.
This **** really chapps my hide.
The media is making it out to be a warning against breast feeding with their choice of words.
Their choice of words stems from the idea that Boobs are sex not food.

Anyone worth their weight in SALT would have written the title appropriatly-
drunken mother smothers child
OR- Child suffocated by mothers body..

Those titles would have attracted attention too.. !! Since most writters are after the 'sale' and the attention their articles bring, there are MANY more ways they could have written this caption , that would not have been a slam to a breastfeeding mom.
The slam should have been against her drinking.. not her food choice.

You're absolutely right, shewolf, and I thought the same thing when I read it.

People thought I was strange when I breastfed my son 'til he was 13 months old. (And would have longer if not for necessary medical treatment.) I was just following good medical advice, which they give everyone, but apparently hardly anyone follows it. Stupid attitudes like this are partly to blame.

yes they are.

We have survived for YEARS ....


ehh.. make that


thousands of years.. on BREAST FEEDING OUR BABIES.
for long periods of time.

If you think about it, a baby can not eat regualr food until they are about a year and a half . With no food processors , strainers, steamers etc.. their complete diet was breast milk.

why oh WHY.. is that not the case now?

Carnation-hersheys-gerber say so. . thats why.
They say their food is second best. to the breast.
They say that their products give babies complete nutrition.
they sell ease and simplicity..
Just open and feed. Or pour in powder and stir.

Sheeshh.. you ask me,
lifting my shirt is a hell of a lot easier then that.

hehe

Shewolf, of course.