Goodness me! I’ve just been privy to a very heated discussion about wet-nursing (the act of breastfeeding someone else’s child). Why does it evoke such a strong reaction in so many people? Honestly, the majority of the ladies involved in the discussion were dead-set against it. Some even said it was “disgusting”! I mean… “disgusting”? C’mon, let’s get real here.
OK, first I have to say that I’m not a woman so I’m obviously approaching this topic from a very different viewpoint of a breast feeder. That said, I can approach the topic from the point of view of a parent whose child may be breastfed by a wet-nurse. And my thoughts are; what’s the big deal?
If we get right back to basics, then we have to accept that wet-nursing has been around for as long as breast feeding has. Throughout history and across the world, wet-nursing and “cross nursing” (the occasional nursing of another’s infant while the mother continues to nurse her own child) has been in practice. Even as far back as 2000 BC, when the oldest written laws – the Code of Hammurabi – were put into practice, there were rules for wet nursing.
So why do so many people get in such a hullabaloo over it? Maybe it has something to do with the intense bond that develops between mother and child, when breastfeeding. In that case, I can understand why some mothers would not want to share that experience with anyone else.
Rhonda Shaw, a sociologist who studies shared nursing in New Zealand, thinks that for some people the idea of physically breast-feeding a child not your own evokes even deeper taboos. She says that many confuse “adult meanings of eroticism with breast feeding … Sometimes people associate a woman breast-feeding another woman’s baby with pedophilia.” Though I’m not sure I would agree with her, I do think she makes an interesting point.
But women who share milk say it’s good for babies and mums. One advocate of cross-nursing, who stayed home after the birth of her child, also nursed the infant of her working sister for a year. She said it created a unique bond with her niece, and brought the family even closer. Another cross-nurser (who also wishes to stay anonymous) says that cross-nursing brought her closer to her friend. “It takes female friendship to another level. You’re trusting another person to nurture your child,” she says. However, the overwhelming feeling from those I spoke to was distinctly negative. I must confess; that surprised me!
One of the ladies had actually cut off relations with a friend of many years because that friend had breast fed her child without her permission. I’m certainly sympathetic, because breast feeding someone else’s child without the parent’s permission does seem a little out of order, but I still couldn’t help thinking that she was blowing things out of proportion. When I asked her why she was so incensed she cited the risks of transmitting viruses through breast milk. That seemed fair enough, but on closer examination, research shows that breast milk contains many factors to protect the infant from such occurrences (although I accept that these may not offer complete protection).
So what about all the milk banks that are popping up around us? I mean, here are organizations that are going to make a considerable profit out of wet-nursing. What do they have to say about it? Well, not surprisingly, their first concern is around the safety of delivering milk to infants. To that end most milk banks will screen donors in a very similar fashion to blood banks.
Dr Ben Hartmann, manager of the PREM Bank, Australia’s first human milk bank says “I would suggest that although breast milk is an amazing and complex fluid that provides so many benefits – beyond just nutrition – to babies, the consequences of some of these risks are severe. One could only counsel parents considering the sharing of breast milk in the knowledge that they fully understood and accepted these risks. For this reason our current policy (and that of most other countries and organizations such as WHO) is that ‘donor’ breast milk should only be sourced from an appropriately managed human milk bank.”
I appreciate the service that many milk banks provide; giving breast milk to the most needy (which is always better than formula milk), but he’s bound to say that though! He wants to ensure his business doesn’t go out of business because people are sharing breast milk openly! I don’t know, personally I can’t see a problem with wet nursing or cross nursing. Sure, there may be slight risk of transmitting a virus (but any type of basic screening can rule out that risk). There is also the sharing of a unique bond that is created between mother and child when breast feeding, which since I’ll never be able to breast feed doesn’t mean much to me either. What I can say is that in communities in which I have witnessed cross nursing and wet nursing as a regularity, the sense of community and the bonds between friends, families, and children have been noticeably greater than in those where it doesn’t occur.
What do you think?
Cross nursing is very common in Arab culture. Children who are nursed by the same woman become milk siblings and the mother who nurses another persons child becomes that childs milk mother. My two of my aunts crossed nursed there children and I have a few friends who have “milk siblings.” I don’t see what the big deal is or why it is disgusting. I do think it is preferable for a woman to breastfeed her own child because it creates a strong bond between the two, but if for some reason she cannot, whether it is just occasionally or because she doesn’t produce enough milk, then I don’t see a problem with it. It is certainly better than giving a baby formula milk. Milk banks seem like a good solution also but cross nursing is definitely more convenient if you know someone willing to do it. Of course women who cross nurse should make sure that they are healthy and free from diseases but other than that, why not.