{{Short description|Woman who breastfeeds and cares for another's child}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2026}} [[File:Louis XIV as an infant with his nurse Longuet de la Giraudiere.jpg|thumb|[[Louis XIV]] as an infant, with his wet nurse Longuet de la Giraudière]]
A '''wet nurse''' is a woman who [[Breastfeeding|breastfeeds]] and cares for another's child.<ref name="OED">{{cite journal |date=December 1989|title= Wet nurse, wet-nurse, n|journal=[[Oxford English Dictionary]] }}</ref> Wet nurses are employed if the mother dies, if she is unable to nurse the child herself sufficiently, or if she chooses not to do so. Wet-nursed children may be known as "milk-siblings", and in some societies, the families are linked by a special relationship of [[milk kinship]]. Wet-nursing existed in societies around the world until the invention of reliable [[formula milk]] in the 20th century. The practice has made a small comeback in the 21st century.
==Reasons== A wet nurse can help when a mother is unable or unwilling to breastfeed her baby. Before the development of [[infant formula]] in the 20th century, wet-nursing could save a baby's life.
There are many reasons why a mother is unable to produce sufficient breast milk, or in some cases to [[lactation|lactate]] at all. For example, she may have a chronic or acute illness, and either the illness itself, or the treatment for it, reduces or stops her milk. This absence of lactation may be temporary or permanent.
There was a greater need for wet nurses when the rates of [[Child abandonment|infant abandonment]] and [[maternal death]], during and shortly after [[childbirth]], were high.<ref>O'Reilly, Andrea, "Wet Nursing," Encyclopedia of Motherhood (2010): 1271</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Mrs Isabella Beeton |title=[[Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management]] |publisher= S. O. Beeton, 18 Bouverie Street, London EC |year=1861 |edition=1st |location=London |pages=1022–1024 }}</ref> There was a concurrent availability of lactating women whose own [[infant mortality|babies had died]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/190651591?searchTerm=%22wetnurse%22 |title=Situations Vacant |newspaper=[[The Age]] |location=Victoria, Australia |date=15 June 1897 |access-date=18 May 2020 |page=8 |via=Trove }}</ref>
Some women chose not to breastfeed for social reasons. For upper-class women, breastfeeding was considered unfashionable, in the sense that it not only prevented them from being able to wear the fashionable clothing of their time, but it was also thought to ruin their figures.<ref name="Emily E. Stevens 2009">Emily E. Stevens, Thelma E. Patrick and Rita Pickler, "A History of Infant Feeding," Journal of Perinatal Education (Spring 2009): 32–39. (accessed 10 February 2016).</ref> Hiring a wet nurse was less expensive than having to hire someone else to help run the family business and/or take care of the family household duties in their place.<ref name="Emily E. Stevens 2009" /> Some women chose to hire wet nurses purely to escape from the confining and time-consuming chore of breastfeeding.<ref>O'Reilly, Andrea, "Wet Nursing," Encyclopedia of Motherhood (2010): 1271.</ref>
==Eliciting milk== [[File:Walcourt - Parclose - Satire d'une nourice.JPG|thumb|A 16th-century carving in a Belgian church, showing a woman expressing her milk into a bowl]]
A woman can only act as a wet nurse if she is [[lactation|lactating]] (producing milk). It was once believed that a wet nurse must have recently undergone childbirth in order to lactate. This is not necessarily the case, as regular breast stimulation can [[Lactation#Lactation without pregnancy, induced lactation, relactation|elicit lactation]] via a [[Reflex|neural reflex]] of [[prolactin]] production and secretion.<ref>E. Goljan, ''Pathology, 2nd ed.'' Mosby Elsevier, Rapid Review Series.</ref> Some women have been able to establish lactation using a [[breast pump]], in order to feed an infant.<ref>Wilson-Clay, Barbara (1996). [http://www.surrogacy.com/medres/article/lac.html "Induced Lactation"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100209070720/http://www.surrogacy.com/medres/article/lac.html |date=9 February 2010 }}. [http://www.surrogacy.com/ ''The American Surrogacy Center''.]</ref>
[[Gabrielle Palmer]],<ref>Lecturer in Human Nutrition at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and author of ''The Politics of Breastfeeding''</ref> author of ''The Politics of Breastfeeding'', states: {{blockquote | There is no medical reason why women should not lactate indefinitely or feed more than one child simultaneously (known as 'tandem feeding')...some women could theoretically be able to feed up to five babies.<ref name="guardian.co.uk">{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/society/2007/jan/05/health.medicineandhealth|title=Viv Groskop on women who breastfeed other people's babies – Society|last=Groskop|first=Viv|work=The Guardian|date=5 January 2007|access-date=21 September 2014}}</ref> }}
==Historical and cultural practices== [[File:A Russian wet nurse, c. 1913.jpg|thumb|A Russian wet nurse, {{circa|1913}}]]
Wet nursing is an ancient practice, common to many societies. It has been linked to social class, where monarchies, the [[aristocracy]], [[nobility]], or upper classes had their children wet-nursed for the benefit of the child's health, and sometimes in the hope of becoming pregnant again quickly. Exclusive breastfeeding inhibits [[ovulation]] in some women ([[lactational amenorrhea]]). Poor women, especially those who suffered the [[social stigma|stigma]] of giving birth to an [[illegitimacy|illegitimate]] child, sometimes had to give their baby up temporarily to a wet nurse, or permanently to another family.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article197794014 |title=Destitute Commission |newspaper=[[The Evening Journal (Adelaide)]] |location=South Australia |date=26 April 1884 |access-date=25 March 2020 |page=7 |via=Trove }}</ref> The woman herself might in turn become wet nurse to a wealthier family, while using part of her wages to pay her own child's wet nurse.
In pre-modern times, it was incorrectly believed that wet nurses could pass on personality traits to infants, such as [[Lamarckism|acquired characteristics]].<ref>{{cite web | url=https://daily.jstor.org/how-wet-nursing-stoked-class-tensions/ | title=How Wet-Nursing Stoked Class Tensions | date=16 September 2021 |via=daily.jstor.org}}</ref>
===Mythology=== Many cultures feature stories, historical or mythological, involving superhuman, supernatural, human, and in some instances, [[Human–animal breastfeeding|animal wet nurses]]. The Bible refers to [[Deborah (Genesis)|Deborah]], a nurse to [[Rebecca (biblical figure)|Rebekah]], wife of Isaac and mother of [[Jacob]] (Israel) and [[Esau]]. In [[Greek mythology]], [[Eurycleia]] is the wet nurse of [[Odysseus]]. In [[Roman mythology]], [[Caieta]] was the wet nurse of [[Aeneas]]. In [[Mythical creatures in Burmese folklore|Burmese mythology]], [[Myaukhpet Shinma]] is the ''[[Nat (spirit)|nat]]'' (spirit) representation of the wet nurse of King [[Tabinshwehti]]. In [[Hawaiian mythology]], [[Nuakea]] is a beneficent goddess of lactation;<ref>''Native planters in old Hawaii: their life, lore, and environment'' by Edward Smith Craighill Handy, Elizabeth Green Handy, [[Mary Kawena Pukui]].</ref> her name became the title for a royal wet nurse, according to [[David Malo]].<ref>''Hawaiian antiquities (Moolelo Hawaii)'' by David Malo</ref>
The importance of the wet nurse to [[ancient Roman culture]] is indicated by the [[Founding of Rome|founding myth]] of [[Romulus and Remus]], who were [[Child exposure|abandoned as infants]] but nursed by the [[She-wolf (Roman mythology)|she-wolf]], as portrayed in the [[Capitoline Wolf]] bronze sculpture. The goddess [[Rumina]] was [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#invocatio|invoked]] among other [[List of Roman birth and childhood deities|birth and child development deities]] to promote the flow of breast milk.
===Ancient Rome=== [[File:4796 - Brescia - S. Giulia - Stele di Lucio Nutrio Gallo (sec. I) - Foto Giovanni Dall'Orto, 25 Giu 2011.jpg|thumb|A funerary [[stele]] (akin to a gravestone) erected by Roman citizen Lucius Nutrius Gallus in the 2nd half of the 1st century AD for himself, his wet nurse, and other members of his family and household]]
In [[ancient Rome]], [[Domus|well-to-do households]] would have had wet nurses ([[Latin]] {{lang|la|nutrices}}, singular {{lang|la|nutrix}}) among their [[Slavery in ancient Rome|slaves]] and freedwomen,<ref>Keith R. Bradley, "Wet-Nursing at Rome: A Study in Social Relations," in ''The Family in Ancient Rome'' (Cornell University Press, 1986), p. 213.</ref> but some [[Women in Ancient Rome|Roman women]] were wet nurses by profession, and the ''[[Digest (Roman law)|Digest]]'' of [[Roman law]] even refers to a wage dispute for wet-nursing services ({{lang|la|nutricia}}).<ref>Bradley, "Wet-Nursing at Rome," p. 214.</ref> The landmark known as the [[Columna Lactaria]] ("Milk Column") may have been a place where wet nurses could be hired.<ref>[[Suzanne Dixon]], ''Childhood, Class and Kin in the Roman World'' (Routledge, 2001), p. 62; Bradley, "Wet-Nursing at Rome," p. 214.</ref> It was considered admirable for [[social class in ancient Rome|upperclass women]] to [[Sexuality in ancient Rome#Breasts|breastfeed their own children]], but unusual and old-fashioned in the [[Roman Empire|Imperial era]].<ref>Bradley, "Wet-Nursing at Rome," p. 201.</ref> Even women of the working classes or slaves might have their babies nursed,<ref>Bradley, "Wet-Nursing at Rome," pp. 201–202 ''et passim,'' especially p. 210.</ref> and the Roman-era Greek gynecologist [[Soranus of Ephesus|Soranus]] offers detailed advice on how to choose a wet nurse.<ref>[[Soranus of Ephesus]], ''Gynaecology'' 2.19.24–5.</ref> Inscriptions such as [[votum|religious dedications]] and [[Roman funerals and burial#Epitaphs|epitaphs]] indicate that a {{lang|la|nutrix}} would be proud of her profession.<ref>Celia E. Schultz, ''Women's Religious Activity in the Roman Republic'' (University of North Carolina Press, 2006), p. 54; Bradley, "Wet-Nursing at Rome," p. 202ff.</ref> One even records a {{lang|la|nutritor lactaneus}}, a male "milk nurse" who presumably used a bottle.<ref>Evidence for bottle-feeding among the Romans is very slim, and the ''nutritor'' may have simply been a [[nursemaid]]; Bradley, "Wet-Nursing at Rome," p. 214.</ref> [[Roman Greece|Greek]] nurses were preferred,<ref>Soranus, ''Gynaecology'' 2.44.</ref> and the Romans believed that a baby who had a Greek {{lang|la|nutrix}} could [[wikt:imbibe|imbibe]] the language and grow up speaking Greek as fluently as Latin.<ref>Richard Tames, ''Ancient Roman Children'' (Heineman, 2003), {{ISBN|9781403405180}} p. 11.</ref>
===India=== By the 1500s, a wealthy mother who did not use a wet nurse was worthy of remark in India. The child was not "put out" of the household; rather, the wet nurse was included within it. The imperial wet nurses of the [[Mughal Empire|Mughal]] court were given honours in the Turco-Mongol tradition.<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Shivram | first1=Balkrishan | title=Dāyasoranāgas of Imperial Mughal | journal=Proceedings of the Indian History Congress | date=2013 | volume=74 | pages=258–268 | jstor=44158824 | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44158824 }}</ref>
===United Kingdom=== [[File:Catherine Willoughby exiled.jpg|thumb|left|[[Catherine Willoughby]], formerly Duchess of Suffolk, and her later husband [[Richard Bertie (courtier)|Richard Bertie]], are forced into exile, taking their baby and wet nurse.]]
Wet nursing used to be commonplace in the United Kingdom. [[Social class in the United Kingdom#Early modern|Working-class women]] both provided and received wet-nursing services.
Taking care of babies was a well-paid, respectable, and popular job for many working-class women. In the 18th century, a woman would earn more money as a wet nurse than an average man could as a labourer. Up until the 19th century, most wet-nursed infants were sent far from their families to live with their new caregiver for up to the first three years of their life.<ref name="Wolf, Jacqueline H 2004">Wolf, Jacqueline H, "Wet Nursing", ''Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society'' (2004).</ref> As many as 80% of wet-nursed babies who lived like this died during infancy.<ref name="Wolf, Jacqueline H 2004" />
During the [[Victorian era]], women took in babies for money and nursed them themselves or fed them with whatever was cheapest. This was known as [[baby-farming]]; poor care sometimes resulted in high [[infant mortality|infant death rates]]. The wet nurse at this period was most likely a single woman who previously had given birth to an illegitimate child.<ref>Acton, W., "Unmarried Wet Nurses", Lancet Vol. 1 (1859): 175.</ref> There were two types of wet nurses by this time: those on [[poor relief]], who struggled to provide sufficiently for themselves or their charges, and the professionals, who were well paid and respected.
Upper-class women tended to hire wet nurses to work within their own homes, as part of a large household of servants.
Wet nurses also worked at [[foundling hospital]]s, establishments for [[child abandonment|abandoned children]]. Their own children would likely be sent away, normally brought up by the bottle rather than being breastfed. Valerie Fildes, author of ''Breasts, Bottle and Babies: A History of Infant Feeding'', argues that "In effect, wealthy parents frequently 'bought' the life of their infant for the life of another."<ref>Valerie A. Fildes, ''Breasts, Bottles, and Babies: A History of Infant Feeding'', Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1986: 193.</ref>
Wet nursing decreased in popularity during the mid-19th century, as medical journalists wrote about its previously undocumented dangers. Fildes argued that "Britain has been lumped together with the rest of Europe in any discussion of the qualities, terms of employment and conditions of the wet nurse, and particularly the abuses of which she was supposedly guilty."<ref>Valerie A. Fildes, ''Breasts, Bottles, and Babies: A History of Infant Feeding'', Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1986: 152.</ref> C. H. F. Routh, a medical journalist writing in the late 1850s, listed the evils of wet nursing, such as the abandonment of the wet nurses' own children, higher infant mortality, and an increased physical and moral risk to a nursed child.<ref>Routh, C. H. F., "On the Mortality of Infants in Foundling Institutions, and Generally, As Influenced By the Absence of Breast-Milk". ''British Medical Journal'' 1 (6 February 1858): 105.</ref> While this argument was not founded in any sort of proof, the emotional arguments of medical researchers, coupled with the protests of other critics, slowly increased public knowledge; the practice declined, replaced by maternal breastfeeding and bottle-feeding.<ref>Valerie A. Fildes, ''Breasts, Bottles, and Babies: A History of Infant Feeding'', Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1986: 243.</ref>
===France=== [[File:The bureau of wet nurses in Paris - wet nurses waiting to be Wellcome V0015043.jpg|thumb|The bureau of wet nurses in Paris]] {{See also|Selling Mother's Milk: The Wet-Nursing Business in France, 1715–1914}}
Wet-nursing was reported in France in the time of [[Louis XIV]], the mid-17th century. By the 18th century, approximately 90% of infants were wet-nursed, mostly sent away to live with their wet nurses.<ref name="O'Reilly, Andrea 2010">O'Reilly, Andrea, "Wet Nursing", ''Encyclopaedia of Motherhood'' (2010): 1271. {{ISBN|9781412968461}}</ref> In Paris, only 1,000 of the 21,000 babies born in 1780 were nursed by their own mothers.<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://journals.openedition.org/transtexts/497|title=La mise en nourrice, une pratique répandue en France au XIXe siècle|first=Emmanuelle|last=Romanet|date=1 December 2013|journal=Transtext(e)s Transcultures 跨文本跨文化. Journal of Global Cultural Studies|issue=8|via=journals.openedition.org|doi=10.4000/transtexts.497|doi-access=free}}</ref> The high demand for wet nurses coincided with the low wages and high rent prices of this era, which forced many women to have to work soon after childbirth.<ref name="Wolf, Jacqueline H 2004" /> This meant that many mothers had to send their infants away to be breastfed and cared for by wet nurses even poorer than themselves. With the high demand for wet nurses, the price to hire one increased as the standard of care decreased.<ref name="Wolf, Jacqueline H 2004" /> This led to many infant deaths. In response, rather than nursing their own children, upper-class women turned to hiring wet nurses to come live with them instead. In entering into their employer's home to care for their charges, these wet nurses had to leave their own infants to be nursed and cared for by women far worse off than themselves, and who likely lived at a relatively far distance away.
The Bureau of Wet Nurses was created in Paris in 1769 to serve two main purposes: it supplied parents with wet nurses, as well as helping lessen the neglect of babies by controlling monthly salary payments.<ref name="Wolf, Jacqueline H 2004" /> In order to become a wet nurse, women had to meet a few qualifications, including physical fitness and good moral character; they were often judged on their age, their health, the number of children they had, as well as their breast shape, breast size, breast texture, nipple shape, and nipple size, since all these aspects were believed to affect the quality of a woman's milk.<ref name="Paula S. Fass 2004">Paula S. Fass (ed.), "Wet Nursing", ''Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society'' (2004): 884–887.</ref> In 1874, the French government introduced a law named after {{ill|Théophile Roussel|fr}}, which "mandated that every infant placed with a paid guardian outside the parents' home be registered with the state so that the French government is able to monitor how many children are placed with wet nurses and how many wet-nursed children have died".<ref name="Wolf, Jacqueline H 2004" />
Wet nurses were hired to work in hospitals to nurse babies who were premature, ill, or abandoned.<ref name="O'Reilly, Andrea 2010" /> During the 18th and 19th centuries, [[congenital syphilis]] was a common cause of infant mortality.<ref name="Sherwood, Joan 1900">Sherwood, Joan, ''Infection of the Innocents: Wet Nurses, Infants, and Syphilis in France, 1780–1900''. McGill-Queen's University Press (2010).</ref> The Vaugirard hospital in Paris began to use mercury as a treatment; however, it could not be safely administered to infants.<ref name="Sherwood, Joan 1900" /> In 1780, it began the process of giving mercury to wet nurses, who could then transmit the treatment in their milk to infected infants.<ref name="Sherwood, Joan 1900" />
The practice of wet-nursing was still widespread during World War I, according to the [[American Red Cross]]. Working-class women would leave their babies with wet nurses so they could get jobs in factories.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ames|first1=Fisher|title=American Red Cross Work Among the French People|url=https://archive.org/details/americanredcros01amesgoog|date=1921|publisher=Macmillan|page=[https://archive.org/details/americanredcros01amesgoog/page/n167 131]}}</ref>
===United States=== [[File:Wet Nurse.png|thumb|Enslaved black woman wet-nursing white infant]]
British colonists brought the practice of wet-nursing with them to North America.<ref name="Paula S. Fass 2004" /> Since the arrangement of sending infants away to live with wet nurses was the cause of so many infant deaths, by the 19th century, Americans adopted the practice of having wet nurses live with the employers in order to nurse and care for their charges.<ref name="Paula S. Fass 2004" /> This practice had the effect of increasing the death rate for wet nurses' own babies. Many employers would have only kept a wet nurse for a few months at a time since it was believed that the quality of a woman's breast milk would lessen over time.<ref name="Paula S. Fass 2004" />
Child-minding, different from wet-nursing, was also commonly an additional job on top of child rearing and nursery tending. Employed wet nurses were typically paid low wages and worked long hours.<ref name=":1">Saari, Zilal; Yusof, Farahwahida Mohd; Rosman, Arieff Salleh; Nizar, Tamar Jaya; Muhamad, Siti Norlina; Ahmad, Shahrel Ahmad Shuhel (2016). "Wet Nursing: A Historical Review and its Ideal Characteristics". ''Perintis eJournal''. '''6''' (1): 6. ISSN 2232-0725.</ref> Workers in the 1900s demanded work contracts to provide stable wages.<ref>""Experiences of a 'Hired Girl'": An Early Twentieth-Century Domestic Worker Speaks Out". ''historymatters.gmu.edu''. Retrieved 22 February 2024.</ref> Wet nursing work was rarely consistent, wet nurses were stereotypically poor ladies from rural areas who offered their services for fees.<ref name=":1" />
Since there were no official records kept pertaining to wet nurses or wet-nursed babies, historians lack the knowledge of precisely how many infants were wet-nursed and for how long, whether they lived at home or elsewhere, and how many lived or died.<ref>Golden, Janet, ''A Social History of Wet Nursing in America: From Breast to Bottle'', Cambridge University Press (1996) {{ISBN|9780814250723}}</ref> The best source of evidence is found in the "[[Recruitment|help wanted]]" ads of newspapers, through complaints about wet nurses in magazines, and through medical journals that acted as employment agencies.<ref name="Paula S. Fass 2004" />
====Slavery==== In the Southern United States before the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], it was common practice for enslaved black women to be forced to be wet nurses to their owners' children.<ref name="O'Reilly, Andrea 2010" /> In some instances, the enslaved child and the white child would be raised together in their younger years.<ref>O'Reilly, Andrea, "Wet Nursing", ''Encyclopaedia of Motherhood'' (2010): 1271</ref> (Sometimes both babies would be fathered by the same man, the slave-owner; see [[Children of the plantation]].) Visual representations of wet-nursing practices in enslaved communities are most prevalent in representations of the [[Mammy archetype]] caricature.<ref>Thompson, Barbara, ed. "The Body of a Myth: Embodying the Black Mammy Figure in Visual Culture". In ''Black Womanhood: Images, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body''. Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2008.</ref> Images such as the one in this section represent both a historically accurate practice of enslaved black women wet-nursing their owner's white children, as well as sometimes an exaggerated racist caricaturization of a stereotype of a "Mammy" character.
===Egypt=== From the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s, and especially after [[World War I]], thousands of [[Slovenes|Slovene]] peasant women<ref>{{cite book |title=Go girls!: when Slovenian women left home |date=2009 |publisher=ZRC Publishing |location=Ljubljana |isbn=978-961-254-170-5 |page=37 }}</ref> migrated via [[Trieste]] to the cosmopolitan port city of [[Alexandria]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Gender, migration, and domestic service |date=2013 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=978-0-415-51054-7 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Hladnik |editor1-first=Mirjam Milharčič |title=From Slovenia to Egypt: Aleksandrinke's trans-Mediterranean domestic workers' migration and national imagination |date=2015 |isbn=978-3-8471-0403-2 }}</ref> There, these ''{{ill|aleksandrinke|sl|Aleksandrinka}}'' undertook various sorts of domestic work<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kalc |first1=Aleksej |title=Aleksandrinke - Alexandrian women: an eminent phenomenon of female emigration from Slovenia to Egypt |journal=Conference: Children, Women and Families Migration in Historical Perspective, 6 – 7. September 2012, Universität Salzburg |date=2012 |doi=10.13140/2.1.1535.5846 }}</ref> for elite Levantine households—"the highly mobile upper strata of Ottoman millets, Jewish, Maronites, Melkite active in international commerce".<ref name="levantineheritage.com">[http://www.levantineheritage.com/francesca-biancani-interview.html Interview with Francesca Biancani], October 2018. (Adjunct Professor of History and Institutions of the Modern Middle East in the Faculty of Political Science of Bologna University) levantineheritage.com</ref> Enough served as wet nurses that this occupation became almost synonymous with Slovene domestic workers, which resulted in some stigma back home. Married women could leave Alexandria and return to their home village, where they would conceive and bear a child and leave the infant to the care of relatives or a hired wet nurse, while they returned to Egypt to seek new employment and a new charge to nurse.
This constitutes the origin of the archetype of the {{lang|sl|aleksandrinka}} as a wet nurse, which came to overpower any other representation of the {{lang|sl|aleksandrinstvo}}, despite the fact that empirical evidence demonstrates that only a tiny fraction of {{lang|sl|aleksandrinke}} at any time worked as wet nurses. The majority of {{lang|sl|aleksandrinke}} were working as nannies or chamber maids, they were not breastfeeding the children they were taking care of. The emphasis on lactaction, which marks the hypersexualization of the {{lang|sl|aleksandrinstvo}}, was part of the rhetorical stigma surrounding this phenomenon in Slovenia.<ref name="levantineheritage.com" />
===Brazil=== During the 18th and 19th centuries, the use of [[Slavery in Brazil|enslaved wet nurses]] was considered fashionable among the upper class.<ref name=":22">{{Cite journal |last=Fernandes Maranhão|first=Tiago|date=2024|title=Motherhood, wet-nursing and nation: nineteenth-century Brazilian medical perspectives.|url=https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2023-012825|journal=Medical Humanities|volume=50|pages=211–221|via=BMJ Journals}}</ref> Before the late 19th century, white women's breasts were believed to produce poor-quality milk.<ref name=":02">{{Cite book |last=Machado|first=Maria Helena Pereira Toledo|title=Motherhood, Childlessness and the Care of Children in Atlantic Slave Societies|date=2020|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781032089560|editor-last=Cowling|editor-first=Camillia|chapter=Between two Beneditos: enslaved wet-nurses amid slavery's decline in southeast Brazil|editor-last2=Machado|editor-first2=Maria Helena Pereira Toledo|editor-last3=Paton|editor-first3=Diana|editor-last4=West|editor-first4=Emily}}</ref> In his 1933 book ''[[Casa-Grande & Senzala|Casa-Grande e Sanzala]]'', Brazilian sociologist [[Gilberto Freyre]] blamed white women's inability to breastfeed on their incompatibility with the hot Brazilian climate and their young age of marriage and pregnancy.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Cleveland|first=Kimberly|title=Black Women Slaves Who Nourished a Nation: Artistic Renderings of Wet Nurses in Brazil|publisher=Cambria Press|year=2019|isbn=9781604979596|location=New York}}</ref> Black women, despite being considered inherently immoral and of poor-quality health, were believed to produce large amounts of high-quality milk due to their [[Four temperaments|'sanguine nature']].<ref name=":02" /> During the mid-19th century, free black women and lower-class white women also became wet nurses, a practice labeled as "mercenary breastfeeding" by the Brazilian elite.<ref name=":4" />
The services of wet nurses were advertised in newspapers. Enslaved wet nurses were often advertised as being "skilled" domestic laborers with other abilities, such as cooking and laundry, to increase their appeal.<ref name=":13">{{Cite book |last=Mauze|first=Mariana|title=The Boundaries of Freedom: Slavery, Abolition, and the Making of Modern Brazil|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2023|isbn=9781009287968|editor-last=Fischer|editor-first=Brodwyn|pages=108–127|chapter=Motherhood Silenced: Enslaved Wet Nurses in Nineteenth-Century Brazil|editor-last2=Grinberg|editor-first2=Keila}}</ref> Thanks to these skills, wet nurses could remain employed in a household after the baby was weaned as ''amas secas'' or "dry nurses".<ref name=":13" /> Furthermore, while childbirth is a necessary component of milk production, the child of the enslaved wet nurse was rarely a consideration. Some advertisements would even specify that the fate of the child was on the whims of the purchaser, stating that the mother could be sold with or without her child.<ref name=":13" />
During the late 19th century, there was a shift in medical belief about the safety of the practice of enslaved wet nursing. Black wet nurses were blamed for the high [[infant mortality]] rate.<ref name=":32">{{Cite journal |last=Roth|first=Cassia|date=19 September 2018|title=Black Nurse, White Milk: Breastfeeding, Slavery, and Abolition in 19th-Century Brazil|url=https://doi.org/10.1177/0890334418794670|journal=Journal of Human Lactation|volume=34|issue=4|pages=804–809|via=Sage Journals}}</ref><ref name=":22" /> One concern was the spread of [[syphilis]], as enslavers would hide the syphilitic nature of their enslaved wet nurses to protect their financial interests.<ref name=":32" /> They also feared undesirable moral characteristics could be transferred from the wet nurse to the infant through her breast milk.<ref name=":8">{{Cite journal |last=Otovo|first=Okezi|title=From Mãe Preta to Mãe Desamparada: Maternity and Public Health in Post-Abolition Bahia|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41342679|journal=Luso-Brazilian Review|volume=48|issue=2|pages=164–191|via=JSTOR}}</ref> Some medical professionals and [[hygienist]]s raised concerns over the effect of forced separation of an enslaved mother and her biological child on the quality of her milk and her ability to care for charge.<ref name=":32" /> Her milk was not just believed to be less nutritious but actively poisonous and even deadly to the infant that she was breastfeeding.<ref name=":22" /> [[Abolitionism in Brazil|Abolitionists]] utilized these health concerns to advocate for the end of slavery.<ref name=":22" /><ref name=":4" />
Wet nurses were also hired by or rented out to ''[[Baby hatch|rodas dos expotos]]'' in order to feed orphaned and abandoned infants.<ref name=":13" />
[[File:Mãe_Preta_(Largo_do_Paiçandu,_São_Paulo(SP),_Brasil).JPG|alt=A bronze statue of a black woman lounging on a granite pedestal. She is topless, a skirt draped over her legs, and a baby in her arms feeding from one of her breasts. The granite pedestal has a simplistic carving of a plantation big house.|thumb|Julio Guerra, ''Monumento Mãe Preta'' (''Monument to the Black Mother''), 1955, São Paulo, Brazil.]]
'''Mãe Preta'''
After the abolition of slavery, there was a shift in the rhetoric used to discuss enslaved black wet nurses. While the medical literature of the 19th century referred to them as ''amas de liete'' (literally "mistresses of milk"), or ''nutriz'' ("nurse"), the sociological and common literature of the 20th century began referring to black enslaved wet nurses as ''mãe preta'' or "black mother".<ref name=":8" />
The ''Monumento Mãe Preta'' (''Monument of the Black Mother'') by Julio Guerra, located in [[São Paulo]], is the best-known piece of artwork depicting the black wet nurse in Brazil.<ref name=":4" /> Since it was put up in 1955, it has been a site of organizing for black activists in São Paulo and of religious expression for practitioners of [[Candomblé]].<ref name=":4" />
===Haiti/Saint Domingue=== During the 18th century, wet nursing in colonial [[Saint-Domingue]] typically occurred on [[plantation]]s and in rural areas.<ref name=":5">{{Cite journal |last=Weaver|first=Karol Kovalovich|date=Winter 2023|title="Her Infant at Her Breast": Breastfeeding as Survival and Resistance in Colonial Haiti|url=https://doi.org/10.1353/jowh.2023.a913383|journal=Journal of Women's History|volume=35|issue=4|pages=76–96|via=Project MUSE}}</ref>
French medical professionals argued against the use of [[Slavery in Haiti|enslaved wet nurses]], fearing that infants would contract a poor temperament and morals through the breast milk.<ref name=":5" /> There were also societal concerns over the presence of an enslaved black woman as a maternal figure within the home. Enslavers and colonial authors feared that this presence would weaken the racial stratification of society.<ref name=":5" />
Enslaved women on plantations would also use their breast milk to feed the children of other enslaved women on the plantation to allow for more women to work in the field.<ref name=":5" /> This practice was often more similar to communal mothering than true wet nursing.<ref name=":5" />
Contemporary [[Haiti]]an views on wet nursing find the practice to be inferior to maternal breastfeeding or formula feeding, and it is therefore rarely practiced.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Dörnemann |first=Jenny |last2=Kelly |first2=Ann |date=July 2012 |title='It is me who eats, to nourish him': a mixed-method study of breastfeeding in post-earthquake Haiti |url=https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1740-8709.2012.00428.x |journal=Maternal & Child Nutrition |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=74–89 |via=Wiley Online Library}}</ref> Breast milk is viewed as dynamic, changing texture and nutritional value with the age of the baby, leading to the belief that wet nursing provides sub-optimal nutrition.<ref name=":0" />
===Cuba=== In the 18th and 19th centuries, the use of [[Slavery in Cuba|enslaved wet nurse]] labor was common among the Cuban elite.<ref name=":6">{{Cite book |last=Franklin|first=Sarah|title=Women and Slavery in Nineteenth-Century Colonial Cuba|publisher=University of Rochester Press|year=2012|isbn=9781580467773|pages=125–146|chapter=Wet Nurses}}</ref> Enslavers would advertise the services of their enslaved wet nurses in newspapers.<ref name=":6" /> It was common practice to mention how long it had been since the enslaved mother had given birth, but mentions of the actual child were rare.<ref name=":6" />
While it was not a common practice, it was possible for enslaved women to use wet nursing as a means of earning a wage to pay for their freedom through ''[[Coartación (slavery)|coartación]]''.<ref name=":6" />
Wet nurses were also used for the foundlings that were left in ''[[Baby hatch|tornos]]''.<ref name=":7">{{Cite book |last=González|first=Ondina|title=Minor Omissions: Children in Latin American History and Society|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|year=2002|isbn=9780299180331|editor-last=Hecht|editor-first=Tobias|pages=102–113|chapter=Down and Out in Havana: Foundlings in Eighteenth-Century Cuba}}</ref> While the elite would have the wet nurse in their home to care for their charge,<ref name=":6" /> foundlings were placed in the home of the wet nurse until they were five.<ref name=":7" /> The wet nurses were paid a yearly wage of 50 [[Spanish dollar|pesos]] per child by the church that ran the ''tornos''.<ref name=":7" />
==Relationships== [[File:Visite Chez la Nourrice (Visit to the Wetnurse) (from Journal l'Artiste) MET DP841080.jpg|thumb|left|"Visite Chez la Nourrice" ("Visit to the Wet nurse") by [[Victor Adam]]]] [[File:An infant who has been living with a wet-nurse being taken a Wellcome V0015113.jpg|thumb|An infant who has been living with a wet nurse being taken away from its foster parents by its natural mother. By [[Étienne Aubry]].]]
Sometimes, the infant was placed in the home of the wet nurse for several months, as was the case for [[Jane Austen#Family|Jane Austen]] and her siblings. The [[Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 91]], a receipt from [[AD]] 187, attests to the ancient nature of this practice. Sometimes, the wet nurse came to live with the infant's family, filling a position between the [[monthly nurse]] (for the immediate [[postpartum confinement|post-partum period]]) and the [[nanny]].
In some societies, the wet nurse was hired as any other employee. In others, however, she had a special relationship with the family, which could incur [[kinship]] rights. In [[Vietnamese family life#Parents|Vietnamese family structure]], for example, the wet nurse is known as {{lang|vi|Nhũ mẫu}}, {{lang|vi|mẫu}} meaning "mother".<ref>{{Cite web|title=Mother's virtue gives her children great blessing|url=http://www.baolavansu.com/271/2537/mothers-virtue-gives-her-children-great-blessing.html|access-date=22 July 2020|website=baolavansu.com}}</ref> Islam has a highly codified system of [[milk kinship]] known as ''[[Breastfeeding in Islam|rada]]''. [[George III of the United Kingdom]], born two months premature, had a wet nurse whom he so valued all his life, that her daughter was appointed [[laundress]] to the Royal Household, "a [[sinecure]] place of great [[emolument]]".<ref>{{cite book |title=George the Third, his Court, and family, Volume 1 |date=1820 |page=73 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KAyQLvA3cBMC |access-date=17 January 2019}}</ref>
Mothers who nurse each other's babies are engaging in a reciprocal act known as '''cross-nursing''' or '''co-nursing'''.
==Current attitudes in Western countries== In contemporary affluent Western societies such as the United States, the act of nursing a baby other than one's own often provokes cultural discomfort. When a mother is unable to nurse her own infant, an acceptable mediated substitute is [[breast pump|expressed milk]] (or especially [[colostrum]]), which is donated to [[Human milk bank|milk banks]], analogous to [[blood banks]], and processed there by being screened, pasteurized, and usually frozen. [[Infant formula]] is also widely available, which its makers claim can be a reliable source of infant nutrition when prepared properly. Dr. Rhonda Shaw notes that Western objections to wet nurses are cultural: {{blockquote | The exchange of body fluids between different women and children, and the exposure of intimate bodily parts make some people uncomfortable. The hidden subtext of these debates has to do with perceptions of moral decency. Societies with breast fetishes tend to conflate the sexual and erotic breast with the functional and lactating breast.<ref name="guardian.co.uk" /> }}
For some Americans, the subject of wet-nursing is becoming increasingly open for discussion. During a [[goodwill tour]] to Sierra Leone with [[UNICEF]] in 2008, American Mexican actress [[Salma Hayek]] decided to breastfeed a local infant in front of the accompanying film crew. The sick one-week-old baby had been born the same day but a year later than Hayek's daughter, who had not yet been weaned.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Salma Hayek On Why She Breastfed Another Woman's Baby |url=https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=6854285&page=1 |access-date=9 June 2024 |website=ABC News}}</ref>
==Current situation elsewhere== Wet nurses are still common in many [[Developing country|developing countries]], although the practice poses a risk of infections, such as HIV.<ref name="guardian.co.uk" /> In China, Indonesia, and the Philippines, a wet nurse may be employed in addition to a nanny as a mark of aristocracy, wealth, and high status. Following the [[2008 Chinese milk scandal]], in which contaminated infant formula poisoned thousands of babies, the salaries of wet nurses there increased dramatically.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122220872407868805|title=Got Milk? Chinese Crisis Creates A Market for Human Alternatives|date=24 September 2008|work=WSJ|access-date=21 September 2014}}</ref>
==Notable wet nurses== In [[Ancient Egypt]], [[Maia (nurse)|Maia]] was the wet nurse of King [[Tutankhamun]].<ref>N. Reeves: ''Akhenaten, Egypt's False Prophet'', London 2001, {{ISBN|0-500-05106-2}}, p. 180</ref> [[Sitre In]], the nurse of [[Hatshepsut]],<ref>Eric H. Cline, David B. O'Connor, ''Thutmose III: A New Biography'', University of Michigan Press 2006, {{ISBN|0-472-11467-0}} p.98</ref> was not a member of the royal family but received the honour of a burial in the royal [[necropolis]] in the [[Valley of the Kings]], in tomb [[KV60]]. Her coffin has the inscription {{lang|egy|wr šdt nfrw nswt In}}, meaning ''Great Royal Wet Nurse In''.<ref name="Hawass Saleem 2016">{{cite book |last1=Hawass |first1=Zahi |last2=Saleem |first2=Sahar N. |title=Scanning the Pharaohs : CT Imaging of the New Kingdom Royal Mummies |date=2016 |publisher=The American University in Cairo Press |location=Cairo |isbn=978-977-416-673-0 |pages=58}}</ref>
In Asia, [[Lady Kasuga]] was the wet nurse of the third [[Tokugawa shogunate|Tokugawa shōgun]], [[Tokugawa Iemitsu|Iemitsu]]. [[Lu Lingxuan]] was a [[lady in waiting]] who served as wet nurse to the emperor [[Gao Wei]]. She became exceedingly powerful during his reign and was often criticized by historians for her corruption and treachery. Chinese emperors honoured the [[Nurse empress dowager]]. Wet nurses were also common during the [[Mughal period]], with almost every Mughal prince having one. Some prominent ones are [[Maham Anga]] for [[Akbar]] and [[Dai Anga]] for [[Shah Jahan]]. [[Shin Myo Myat]] was the mother of King [[Bayinnaung]] of the [[Toungoo dynasty]] of [[Burma]] (Myanmar), and the wet nurse of King [[Tabinshwehti]]. The last [[Emperor of China]], [[Puyi]], described [[Wang Lianshou]] as being the only person who was able to control him: "from my infancy until the time I grew up, only my wet nurse, because of her simple language, was able to make me grasp the idea that I was like other people."
In the Ottoman Empire, after the slave [[Zafire Hatun]] gave birth to her son [[Domenico Ottomano|Osman]], she was selected to be the wet nurse of future sultan [[Mehmed IV]].<ref>{{cite book |editor-last1=Kenan |editor-first1=Seyfi |editor-last2=Somel |editor-first2=Selçuk Aksin |title=Dimensions of Transformation in the Ottoman Empire from the Late Medieval Age to Modernity: In Memory of Metin Kunt |date=2021 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=9789004442351 |pages=54–96 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Dimensions_of_Transformation_in_the_Otto/xM87EAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA73&printsec=frontcover |last1=Artan |first1=Tülay |chapter=Imaginary Voyages, Imagined Ottomans: A Gentleman Impostor, the Köprülüs, and Seventeenth-Century French Oriental Romances |doi=10.1163/9789004442351_004}}</ref> Mehmed's father, Sultan [[Ibrahim of the Ottoman Empire|Ibrahim]], is said to have taken a liking to Zafire, and he reportedly began to favour Osman over Mehmed, eventually resulting in Zafire and Osman leaving the [[Ottoman Imperial Harem|harem]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mignot |first1=Vincent |last2=Hawkins |first2=A. |title=The history of the Turkish, or Ottoman Empire, from its foundation in 1300, to the peace of Belgrade in 1740 |volume=3 |date=1787 |pages=96–98 |url=https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_the-history-of-the-turki_mignot-vincent_1787_3/page/96/mode/2up}}</ref>
In Europe, [[Hodierna of St Albans]] was the mother of [[Alexander Neckam]] and wet nurse of [[Richard I of England]], and [[Mrs. Pack]] was a wet nurse to [[William, Duke of Gloucester]] (1689–1700). [[Geneviève Poitrine]] was a wet nurse of the [[Dauphin of France]], [[Louis Joseph, Dauphin of France|Louis Joseph]], son of King [[Louis XVI]] and Queen [[Marie Antoinette]]. Poitrine was accused of transmitting [[tuberculosis]] to the Dauphin and triggering his infant death when aged seven,<ref name="Delalande">Arnaud Delalande. ''Le Cœur du Roi : Révolution 1'' (The Heart of the King), Grasset, 2017, {{ISBN|978-2-246-85850-8}},</ref> although since very few pre-adolescent children die from TB, this accusation may have been the result of a misdiagnosis.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/tuberculosis-death-rates-by-age |title=Death rate from tuberculosis, by age, World, 1990 to 2017 |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=2017 |website=Our World in Data |publisher=Global Change Data Lab |access-date=9 December 2020}}</ref>
Some non-royal wet nurses have also been written about. [[Halimah bint Abi Dhuayb]] was the [[foster parent|foster mother]] and wet nurse of the Islamic prophet [[Muhammad]]. [[Petronella Muns]] was, with her employer, the first Western woman to visit Japan. Naomi Baumslag, author of ''Milk, Money and Madness'', described the legendary capacity of [[Judith Waterford]]: "In 1831, on her 81st birthday, she could still produce breast milk. In her prime she unfailingly produced two quarts (four pints or 1.9 litres) of breast milk a day."<ref name="guardian.co.uk" />
==See also== * [[Roman Charity]], works of art based on the story of a daughter feeding her dying father. * ''[[Selling Mother's Milk: The Wet-Nursing Business in France, 1715–1914]]'', a history of wet nurses in France.
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== * Vapnek, Lara (2022). "[[doi:10.1093/jahist/jaac119|The Labor of Infant Feeding: Wet-Nursing at the Nursery and Child's Hospital, 1854–1910]]". ''Journal of American History''. '''109''' (1): 90–115.
==External links== * {{commons category-inline|Wet nurses}}
{{Breastfeeding}} {{Authority control}}
[[Category:Personal care and service occupations]] [[Category:Child care occupations]] [[Category:Breastfeeding]] [[Category:Gendered occupations]] [[Category:Wet nurses| ]]